INTERESTING ITEMS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 336, 11 February 1911, Page 2

INTERESTING ITEMS.

Twice as many marriages are arranged in the Season as out of the Season. Over three million pairs of blankets are woven in the United Kingdom annually. Many society hostesses employ typist-secretaries to deal with their correspondence. Few people expected that a Queen Dowager would appoint a Mistress of the Robes, but the Duchess of Buccleuch, who has held the appointment in two reigns, will continue to act in that capacity to her Majesty so that two Mistresses of the Robes (the highest office held by a lady at Court) will now figure among the members of the Royal Households, as the Duchess of Devonshire occupies that position in the Household of the Queen Consort. Most Royalties have their own ideas as to how their gloves should be made, and naturally makers are only too pleased to carry them out. Her Majesty Queen Mary has recently given a large order for gloves of which all the seams are to be turned inwards, as she prefers them made in this way. Mrs Percy Proctor, wife of the wellknown American millionaire manufacturer, is nosv devoting her time to a search for her husband, in order that he may be served with papers suing for alimony. Mrs Proctor, who is a well-known figure both in New York and St. Petersburg, is a Rusisan by birth, and before her marriage to Mr Proctor was the Baroness von Klifus, having married the baron at the age of fourteen.

The rose as a preventive of colds is a new idea. A Brighton Arm of manufacturing chemists has taken the essence of the lovely dark-red rose, called "Duke of Edinburgh," and combined it in tablet form with the antiseptic formalin, claiming that one of these tablets taken in the morning will ensure against catching cold for the rest of the day. Rose leaves were used to disinfect sick rooms as early as the fifteenth century, and it has been suggested that the present practice of sending flowers to the sick arose from a knowledge of their antiseptic qualities. In this age of "records" the statistics of the weddings solemnised on a recent Sunday in Vienna deserve to be registered. No fewer than 1000 couples were married and 230 silver weddings were celebrated in the seventy-six parish churches of the capital. In two churches the total was seventy each, and in many others the number surpassed fifty. In order to prevent the unusual demand for their services from interfering with the regular celebration of Mass, the clergy disposed of the candidates for wedlock in batches of ten and twenty at a time.

Even in her early days Misi Braddon, the celebrated novelist, was devoted to literary work, and her efforts received the encouragement of Bulwer Lytton, to whom she subsqeuenlty dedicated the novel which has thrilled so many readers, "Lady Audley's Secret." Miss Braddon—- or Mrs John Maxwell, to giva her real name — began her literary career with a volume of poems, and her first novel, published as a serial, and which is now known as "The Trail of the Serpent," brought her exactly ,£lO. "Lady Audley's Secret" was also begun as a serial and it is a tribute to the genius of the writer that though 40 years have passed since it was penned, it is as popular as at first. She is a lady of remarkable versatility, reading French, German, Spanish, and Italian with equal facility. She used to be a great horsewoman, but now turns her attention to gardening and the collection of old silver. The Earl of Camperdown, who has recently been staying at Gleneagles, his place near Auchterarder, in Perthshire, has now gone to Camperdown, his family seal near Dundee, and is expected to remain there for the greater part of the autumn. lie is accompanied by his sister Lady Auercromby, who makes her ho re with him. Lord Camperdown, who is the third Earl, will celebrate his 70th birthday next May, and succeeded to the title nearly 44 years ago. He is the great-grandson of the famous naval commander Admiral Duncan, whose victory over the Dutch Fleet off Camperdown is commemorated in the title. Lord Duncan was rewarded,' amongst other things, by a pension from the Crown of £3OOO a year to himself and his two successors in the peerage. The pension expired with the late pee;-. President Taft has been holidaymaking ni; Beverly, Mass., and being an ardent golfer has had a daily round on the links of the Myopia Hunt Club. One of the newspaper men, who had been watching tthe president's movements at Beverly, describes Mr Taft's golf in a special articles in the "New York Independent." The president is said "to play golf with a baseball stroke" i.e., with a short swing. Pie is described as "a good example" of that type of player. "He rarely misses a ball, and when he has given the bail its smite and sent it sailing on its way he is done. He makes no after poses. He puts well. He covers the Myopia course (which is tio'o") yards round) in something under two hours. That means good going." "In short," says the article, "be is J-V very good golfer, indeed, and he may be expected to hold his own on any green anywhere, no matter how expert his companions."