WOMAN’S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1926, Page 19

WOMAN’S WORLD

A MAID IN MAYFAIR.

GOSSIP FROM LONDON TOWN. 01 R BUSY ROYALTY. (From Our Lady Correspondent.) London, Oct. 14. The “little season,” judging by the elan of its commencement, promises to he by far the most important of recent years. With the members of the Royal Family back in town, London is full of social activities: and our busy “Royals” have to face prodigious lists of fixtures for the remainder of the present month. The King and Queen are helping to entertain the members of the Imperial Conference; while the Prince of Wales, of course, is confronted, as usual, with the problem of how to cope with his countless engagements. As for the Duke and Duchess of .York, they have not only to make ready for their great Australian tour, but will bo very busy superintending the alterations to their house in Piccadilly, to which they will return when London welcomes tlitm homo again.

HER MAJESTY’S GRANDSONS. Master George Lascelles and his younger brother Gerald have been having a splendid time at Balmoral. If they were not singularly unspoilable little laddies, they might well have had their young heads turned by the wholesale homage of Dec-side! George is a particularly observant and intelligent child, and wins liking and admiration wherever he goes, though lie himself is pleasantly unconscious of the fact. He is very proud of the tartans he has been wearing during his visit North, and so are the castle tenantry, who frankly adore both Queen Mary's grandsons. Her Majesty, by the way, took yet another opportunity to support home industries on behalf of Princess Mary’s children. She recently bought them a goodly array of winter wool socks, as well as cosy little tweed coats. PRINCESS ELIZABETH. Little Princess Elizabeth trav'elK'd 'back with Mor nurses from Scotland on the train which brought the King and Queen to Euston. The sleeping ear in which she lay was attached to the Royal saloon, and the grandparents were pleasantly excited at having the baby in their charge. While the King and Queen were being greeted on their arrival in London, the Duchess of York’s nurseswere able to slip quietly out of the station with their precious charge, and motor to 11, Bruton Street, where the Duke and Duchess will join their little daughter on Tuesday. The Queen looking a little tired, but very bronzed, was carrying a beautiful bouquet of. roses — her favourite flower —and wearing a tweed coat-cape with a fur collar over her tweed gown.

ROUMANIA’S ROYAL GENIUS. Tlie Queen of Roumania’s visit to the United States is keeping the gossips busy in regard to that rumoured film contract on the other side of the Atlantic. One who is well acquainted with Her Majesty assured me that it was more likely the Queen would write for the films than act for them, though she was not averse frjpn doing both—on one condititon. That condition is that the King should give his consent. Of one tiling we may be certain. The fee will have to lie an exceptionally high one, as it would be devoted to the various Roumanian charities Queen Marie has so much at heart. The United Staten will have to pay very handsomely for the glory of billing a crowned queen in a cinema cast. Roumania’s royal genius is an excellent business woman as well as a gifted writer, and those business faculties aje especially on the alert when Roumania’s well-being is in question, THE ÜBIQUITOUS CHARLESTON. With the Prince of Wales and Queen Maud of Norway self-confessed Charleston enthusiasts, it is not surprising that the well-known teachers of dancing are 'being besieged by learners anxious to acquire the new “flat” steps. Most pupils, one professional danseuse told me, learn in a single lesson, for the new approved style is much easier than the old jumping and kicking version. Bin there, are .more ways of learning the Charleston than taking lessons in the “orthodox manner. I am assured that quite a big part of the enormous success of the “Blackbirds’ ” show at the London Pavilion can bo attributed to the exposition of this branch of terpsiehorean art. Here, of course, you see .the real thing. London has never known such dancing. And night after night the cheaper seats are filled with (harleston aspirants, One group of girls, I was told, have not missed a single perrormanee, with the one aim in view of perfecting their steps!

COSMETICS BARRED. Like most people who know Sweden at all, Airs. Elliott-Lynn lias come baek" from her recent Swedish visit full of enthusiasm for the beauty of the women’s complexions. Their freshness, of course, is Nature’s own, for Cixmelics are virtually barred in that Spartan little country. They are wonderfully sturdy and fit. too, these Sv.edisri ladies, as might be expected in the land where the physical jerks come from, so to speak. And incidentally, long before the belles of London. Paris, and New York had discarded whalebone and steel, the Scandinavian girls belonged to the anti-corset brigade. I remember a certain very beautiful young Swedish student, who was my guest for some time, expressing horrified amazement at the kind of garment an English girl donned before the tricot era dawned. She wondered how we could possibly breathe. So do we! THE FIRST BIG WEDDING. M< mbers of the D’Oylv < arte Opera Company, and hundreds of their * admirers, were at St. George’s. Hanover Square, for the first big wedding of the little season—that of Miss Bridget DOyly Carte to her cousin, the Earl of < ranbrook. Velvet, which is to be a favourite material for brides during the autumn and winter months, had been allied with silver lace for the wed-

ding gown, and the bride wore over her face, as she entered the eliurch, a lovely veil of old Brussels lace, lent by her mother-in-law, Dorothy Ladjt Cranbrcok. Her bouquet was of golden tiger lilies, an unusual choice for a bride, and they made a dei’ghtful splash of colour as she walked up the aisle n her oyster tinted frock, followed b; a bevy of bridesmaids ;. given tissu- frocks, shot with gold. The church was erowed, all society that >. ,’n London the moment being present, and mat:" well-known people went m afterwar ’e to tho nuge I'.i.'ptkn w’lch Lady Do'i .iy D'Uyly made a delightful splack of colour as she walked up the aisle in her oyster tinted frock, followed by a bevy of bridesmaids in green tissue frocks, shot with gold. The church was crowed, all society that is in London at the moment being present, anil many well-knwon people went on afterwards to the huge reception which Lady Dorothy D’Oyiy

CHARLIE’S PENSIONERS. For man years Charlie Chaplin lias played a fairy-godfather role to a number of English folk in straitened circumstances. Regular pensioners, these, in a category quite apart from the countless lame dogs he has helped over stiles at one time and another in the course of his career. There is one old lady up North who receives i’3 a week from the great little comedian of the silent stage. Often, too, he makes substantial gifts to people in temporary difficulties, for it is not his way to consign begging letters en masse to the wastepaper basket. All arc read. When Charlie thinks he hears the ring of honesty in a desperate appeal—and he is prone to give the benefit of the doubt when harsher counsels essay to prevail! —he orders that the money must be sent. Charlie has known poverty himself. He has a long memory, and a big heart. MID-MORNING MENUS. I hear that, the proprietor of a certain attractive little restaurant has so many clients "popping in” between ten-thirty a.m. and noon that he has had to put on a special mid-morning menu. Headed’ by all sorts of notables of the stage, the no-breakfast brigade is Considerably on the increase. People who sip a cup of tea and toy with a biscuit or two before leaving home in the morning, or who cut out both and substitute simply a glass of orange juice in their stead, have initiated a new mealtime round about eleven o’clock. Mine host of the accommodating .restaurant, it seems, is looking for a name whereby to designate these between-breakfast-and'-lujich repasts. They are so popular that he feels they merit some sort of title on the bill of fare. Well, what’s the matter with “brunch”- —or, for the fnore formalminded, “bruncheon” i PAID TO LISTEN. The manageress of a department in .a West End store has given up her job this week to accept a curious post. She is to be a paid "listener,” and is to receive a salary of £350 a year. ■ She is to work for a man who is sales organiser for one of the biggest trusts in the country, and who is said to he worth £lO,OOO a year. This man finds his brain is most active, and ideas come more readily if he has someone to talk to, someone with whom his propeets can bo discussed. lie has tried a number of men, but sooner or later they all thought they knew more than he did. He has therefore taken on this woman, whose only qualifications are a ready sympathy and an understanding of the subject which he will talk about. Xllfi CABARET HABIT.

So far as London is concerned it looks as though the cabaret habit were becoming a settled institution. Not only lias the number of West End cabarets grown by leaps and bounds, but now the cabaret show is being democratised. Hitherto it has been an expensive habit, and confined mostly io well-to-do folks. But it is now the feature at least one popular resort where a cheap a la carte fare is still served without extra charge. isy degrees the cabaret may spread till it becomes as common in London as a cafe orchestra. All this is hardly helpful io the theatres and music-halls, but the remedy seems pretty obvious. Perhaps we are in process of evolution to a stage when the theatre and the musichall, like most of the big cinemas, will embark on elaborate catering. The business of dining out and play-going may be combined under the self-same roof. But it will entail a radical reeonstruetic.il ,of most of our existing playhouses. DORCHESTER HOUSE.

According to report another of London’s stately liomcs is in the market,

and Dorchester'House, perhaps the finest mansion in all Park Lane, is about to be sold. A syndicate is eager to pay half-a-million for it, and convert what was long tlie American Embassy, with a sculptured eagle over the grand portals, into ultra-swagger flats. In the case of a mansion built in the style of an Italian Plazzo, with huge rooms and noble galleries,’ conversion must mean rebuilding. The late occupant was Colonel Sir George Bedford, the King’s Equerry, whose recent demise will probably mean the dispersal of the famous Holford art collection, which includes many notable pictures by the great mediaeval masters. Park Lane has known some queer changes of fortune. PARK LANE. It has for a century or more been London's most fashionable residential street. Park Lane was for novelists and journalists the .synonym for rank ::n<! wealth. But the cloven hoof of commerce is upon it. The stream of heavy motor buses lias much depreciated its residential amenity. And its destiny looks like one of big hotels and expensive flats. Before it became Park Lane it was Tyburn Lane, and Tyburn Tree, at its north end. witnessed the llogarthian saturnalia of popular hang' ings. The last execution there was in 1783. Among its victims were Perkin Warbeek, Fenton, Jack Sheppard. Jonathan Wild, Jlrs. Brownrigg, and Six-teen-stringed Jack, who passed up the Lane holding a bouquet from a fashionable lady admirer. Crowds numbering over two hundred thousand assembled for a “big” execution,-and, in 1705, saw John Smith, a burglar, come to life on being reprieved after hanging for a full quarter of an hour.