MISCLELLANEOUS ITEMS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1927, Page 3

MISCLELLANEOUS ITEMS

MAYFAIR HORRIFIED. LONDON. Aug. 20. Photographs of the. Prince of Wales and Prince Goorgo wearing straw hats and morning coats during their Canadian tour, which have been received here, have driven the dress aesthetics into paroxysms of sartorial anguish. One West End authority found it almost impossible to control liis feelings as lie expatiated on the outrage of the conventions of correct attire. “The Prince,” ho said, “is dressed as actors used to dress when portraying a character from a barbarian suburb. “A straw hat with n tail coat simply isn’t done. “A stand-up turn-over collar with a morning coat is wrong, hut. it seems tlio Prince wore a soft collar, which is simply criminal with such a coat,’ The incident recalls the terrible shock felt in fashionable London at the end of last century when a painting of the Royal Family, in wliieh the present King appeared to he wearing tan shoes with a frock coat, was exhibited.

Mayfair was horrified, but. it was subsequently explained the painter was solely responsible, and that the then Duke of York was correctly attired.

GRANDMA WINS. PRETTIEST LEGS IN ALL NEW YORK. NEW YORK, Aug. 26. Airs Harry Wood, who frankly admits her 70 years has beaten the youth and beauty of the city in open coir petition. The event was a prettied lens competition, and hundreds of girls entei ed. Competitors Were not allowed to show -themselves to the judges, who made their decisions from what they could see beneath a curtain which rut off the entrants from just above the kneo up. One pair of legs attracted universal attention for their symmetry and beauty. They were chosen as the winner—"ltd out stepped Airs Henry Wood, very nearly old enough to lie the greatgrandmother of most of the other competitors. “I entered just to teach these 192, flappers that if they think they are the only beauties who ever lived they’ve got another guess coming, she told the newspaper men.

armentieres clock hands. 1 PARIS, August 8. Armentieres is to get back the hands i of its -town ball clock which were removed just before the building was destroyed by German shell fire on December 16, 1917. The mayor stated to-day that he had received a letter from Major Fox, formerly of the Royal Irish Rifles, the officer who removed the clock hands, informing him that he is sending them hack. The Mayor is a little, puzzled what to do with the hands as there is not a stone of the original town hall left standing,

TORCHES ON PITCHFORKS. LONDON, Sept. 10. 1 Tho Dublin correspondent of the “ Westminster Gazette ” says that Air Cis grave triumphantly returned to Dublin after 'an electioneering tour. Alany localities welcomed him with bonfires.

In Mayo, cavalry, composed of farmers’ sous, carrying torches and burning peat-sods impaled on pitchforks, formed an escort. It was a weird, but impressive indication of Air Cosgrave s popularity. JIBE BECOMES FACT. “TALKING THROUGH NECK.” LONDON, Sept. 10. “Talking through your neck,” is now a scientific fact. Exhibits at the Olympia Mechanical Exhibition include a telephone for use in rooms full of noise, this appliance catching the speaker’s vibrations at his throat and conveying his words clearly to the listener. SCIENTISTS AND CHURCH. LONDON. Sept. 11. “ I was a good boy yesterday. I went to church and listened to the Bishop of Ripou’s bitter attack on ray address of August 3,” said Sir Arthur Keith, the president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.

“The .Bishop suggested that scientists should take a rest for ten years for the purpose of allowing the world to assimilate the revolutionary knowledge with which it had been glutted. That is typical of the Church’s attitude. H does not realise that we cannot rest. Nothing can rest. If the Church rested, it would die immediately. The universal law of evolution is that there is no breathing space. “ I say quite frankly,” added Sir Arthur, “ that there is considerable danger that the Church wii’l take a rest.”

NAPOLEON’S T< >MU. £25,000 TO RE-GILD THE DOME OF INVALIDES. PARIS. '.Vug. 8. The French '.Government is being asked to grant a. credit, of £25.009 to re-gild tho great, dome of the Invalided, which shelters Napoleon s tomb. The dome of tb • Invalides, as every visitor to Paris knows, is one of the most prominent of the central features of the city. It is considerably larger than the dome of Si. Paul’s in London, which was built l:y Sir Christopher Wren at the same period.. am! rivals even the dome of St. Peter s in Rome.