IN TOWN AND OUT

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 1, 23 March 1927, Page 4

IN TOWN AND OUT

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SOCIAL NOTES Mrs. Dickinson is at present visiting Wellington. Mrs. Keeble is an Auckland visitor to Wellington. Miss Edith Lyttelton (G. B. Lancaster), left Auckland for the South this morning. Mrs. Buttle has returned from Wellington, where she attended the marriage of Dr. Giesen’s daughter. Miss Phyllis Lett will arrive in Auckland from the South this evening, and will be staying at the Hotel Cargen. Lady Fuller, wife of Sir Benjamin Fuller, and her mother, Mrs H. Thomson, arrived from Sydney by the Ulimaroa this morning. Both Lady Fuller and her mother were formerly Aucklanders..

Lieut.-Colonel and Mrs. Claire, of “Avondale House,” Millar, Cheltenham, England, have returned to Auckland from a visit to Rotorua, and are staying at the Grand Hotel. Mr. E. Leach and his three daughters of Sydney, who are at present motoring through New Zealand, arrived in Auckland to-day and are at the Hotel Cargen. Dr. and Mrs. Allen, of Sydney, are guests at the Star Hotel. Mr. and Mrs. H. W. Lawrence, of Johnsonville, are staying at the Star Hotel. Miss Tancred, of Ladies’ Mile, Remuera, is the guest of Miss Benneli, Dunedin. Miss L. Rathbone is leaving for Sydney this week. Miss Beryl Houghton, of St. Stephens’ Avenue is leaving for England shortly. The Misses Foley, of Auckland, are leaving for England via America next month. HANDY HINTS FOR THE HOME DRESSMAKER. Stitched Hems.—Here is a useful hint for the home dressmaker, intent on turning out a “proessional” looking tweed skirt cr an unlined coat. Turn up the hem on to the inside, and tack it; then machine row after row of stitching as close as it w.'ll go, almost to the top of the turning, and cut away the raw edges at the last row of stitching. This leaves you a perfectly smooth, neat hem. Self-binding.—A dainty finish for the hem and draperies of your new dance frock, when these are cut on the straight, is the seif-bindftig. Cut the edges to be bound with half-inch trimmings; fold back the turnings on to the right side, and press them. Now stitch the turnings, through !: > the frock, of course, one-eighth of an inch from the fold. Turn back again over the stitched fold, and press, then tuck in the raw edges of the turnings, and fell neatly to the undersides of the material. This gi r es you a tiny, perfectly straight, and neat bound edge. •You can, of course, make the binding .any width you please by cutting the edge to be bound, with wider or narrower turnings. * “ELEVENSES” f The girl who is trying the diet cure by way of getting slim, and has the plainest of breakfasts, devoid of butter, bacon, jam, and milk, is apt to get “that sinking feeling” about 11 a.m. She therefore makes tor the nearest, store where “elevenses” arr served, “elevenses” being the midmorning repast that is beloved by women of all types. Little teashops specialise nowadays in “elevenses,” but the women proprietors make the morning “snack” quite a different thing from afternoon tea, in that, although the :ame beverages are obtainable, the food is va. ied. Crisp home-made biscuits figure largely on the menu, and Lhey are so light tiiat four or five can be e,ateu with no misgivings as to their fattening properties. . And, since many women have now drilled themselves into positive dislike of the saccharine in food, savoury fiiscujts are most popular, the flukey 'heese variety being first favourite. Ginger parkin has returned to favour for the purpose of “elevenses,” and the crisp Swedish bread, which has no effect on the figure, is .reatlv in demand. Russian tea, without milk, and with thin slices of lemon, is preferred to black coffee, while moat extracts also have their devotees. fortified with elevenses,' the busy •vi.man can afford to take Quito a meagre luncheon, so that, ai,though it represents an extia meal .t really reduces the quantity of foodstuffs cors umed.

MUNDANE MUSINGS A CAUSERIE FOR WOMEN My Dears, — I’ve just escaped from a seemingly interminable and futile argument about whether or not the marriage ceremony should be revised . . . and out of all the froth and frivol that was talked I caught one or two quite amusing ideas . . . what a fruity subject it is after all! And what a lot of revision it could stand to bring it up to an ideal standard. That little word “obey,” in the marital contract has made as much trouble as the old, original apple that started all this wedding business. Why keep it in, when wives insist on going out? Take Ann Ananias for example, who wants to run off for a few weeks’ holiday somewhere. Do you suppose her husband’s “No” is going to stop her? The answer is again, “No!” My suggestion is that this clause should be modified to read, “To love, honour, and do exactly as I like, un:il breath us do part.” And there isn’t anything, is there, that provokes more cheery grins or oftener makes a merry laugh go round the church than that passage in the wedding ceremony about the groom’s worldly goods, when everyone knows he hasn’t got any, and the pews are full of his creditors. How much more appropriate if this phrase were often 'changed to read, “With all thy worldly goods, I me endow,” or “With all thy father’s goods, I us endow.” Don’t you see the force of these arguments?

Will discussions on the merits or, rather, the demerits of the modern girl ever cease? In turn we get abused and commended; now we are compared with the grande- dames of the eighteenth century and are consequently frowned at; again we are thought simply to fall short of virtue; sometimes with smiles we are likened for love of luxury and riot to Cleopatra. Some of our critics think us fast and abandoned . . . others, more kindly, see in us«.only good-heartedness, simplicity and frankness.

The Victorians—those who survive—think, for some reason best known to themselves, that the modern young woman is “fast” and “bad.” whereas if they seriously compared her with the young ladies of the eighteenth, seventeenth, sixteenth and fifteenth centuries, or indeed with those of almost any century, she would stand the comparison very well indeed. If we consider the cunning, the deception, the folly, the constancy, the sentimentality, the discrimination, the passion of the past, how far less “good” it is than our jolly, romping, impatient and reasonable present! Our motto might well be, “anything and everything,” or “all’s one.” And if after considering our immediate Christian name terms, our easy smile when things go well, our nonchalant shrug when ill, we examine the immense flirtations and affairs of the past—the long sieges, the arch defences, the importance set on so many trivial things, the desires, despairs and triumphs—we must realise that these imply a sense of variety in pleasure and pain which belong to a very old and wicked world . . . methinks we are but babes in the wood in comparison. In a recent English fashion paper I noticed several very chic ladies with painted backs! No, not a weatherproof coat all over, but just the cutest little black butterfly or other conceit perched at a low point of the decolletage. That’s all very well, if one has an artistic friend to paint a lifelike beetle or bat on one’s dimpled back—but, what about the daily tub? Does one have to forego it, or does one carefully skirt the dimple on which the butterfly sits? Ooooh! Nearly forgot to tell you about the loveliest own I’ve seen for many moons. ’Twas at a recent very smart function, and the lady who wore it must have created a joy-inspiring amount of envy ’mong the other ca—er, women! “Molten steel” doesn’t sound exactly like a feminine fabric, but that’s the only way to describe the gorgeous cloth that composed it; she wore it veiled with palest sapphire tulle, and introduced silver lame to strike the subtly gleaming note we all adore just now. And what a success she was! And that, my dears, is that! ’Bye for the moment. HUIA.