AN AMAZING SHOW

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8340, 29 January 1913, Page 5

AN AMAZING SHOW

Though it was primarily famous as a "Doll Show/' the exhibition of, dolls collected by the London “Evening News" as Christmas gifts fox London's poor children, was also an amazing exhibition of needlework. One hundred thousand dolls, some of them most magnificently attired in silks and satins, in real lace, in delicate embroideries, in tissue of gold and silver, in velvet, exmine

and sable, were not dressed without marvels of stitching being accomplished. The floor space was mostly occupied by pyramids of dolls. Dolls were arranged against the walls and reached from floor to ceiling; ten thousand dolls were festooned in kaleidoscopic colour and variety from the ceiling overhead. Think of the needlework, the patient cutting and fitting and stitching involved in outfitting this kingdom of lilliput! And the donors were as various as the dolls Most of the famous actresses of the time contributed to the show, many of them sending miniature presentments of themselves. Then there were the costly miniature mannequins sent by the grear dressmaking firms of London and Paris; the fifty sumptuous dolls clothed in cloth of gold -that came from India, the dolls dressed by high-born, wealthy, or distinguished leaders of society, and those that were the handiwork of the passengers on the great Cunard liners. Best of all were the thousands of della dressed by the girls in the tendon shops, in their spare time, a real labour of love and self-denial. Among the work girls who sent contributions were those employed in Crosse and Blackwell's jam and jelly-malting works. An interesting contribution came from the Overseas Club in Montreal, and among the individually notable groups was Miss Davies’s Princess Mary, the Prince of Wales, and Prince John. Nor must Miss Margot Glyu’s red-haired '‘Evangeline,” from the “Vicissitudes,” by her mother, Mrs Elinor Glyn, be forgotten, or the fifty “Baby Wendys” which, in their charming cradles, were sent by "Peter Pan.” So this doll show of 1912 was a worthy successor to the famous "Truth” doll shows for the same kindly purpose of gladdening the hearts of the slum children, started many a year ago by Labonchere, of tho London "Truth.” —ZEALAND lA.