"THE DUCHESS"

Observer, Volume 2, Issue 48, 13 August 1881, Page 551

"THE DUCHESS"

—The Duke of Portland's wedding present to his cousin, Miss Bentinck (who has married Lord Glamis), was a cheque for £10,000.

— In weddings at Home now, where many bridesmaids are present, it is fashionable to have what arc called rose weddings. The bride is the Avhite rose, costumed to represent it, and the brides maids flush up in beautiful colour from "maiden blush," nearest the bride, to rose damask on one side, and flloire de Dijon amber on the other, as best suit their hair and complexions. This is a happy thought. The Skating Rink in the Choral Hall on Wednesday, the 3rd inst., was well attended; but the gales which diffused themselves over that aristocratic hall were not "ambrosial odours from spices divine." Everybody was exclaiming : "Faugh ! what can it be?" And from the ladies dressing-room came bursts of "Oh gracious ! goodness ! dreadful ! terrible ! quite to awfully much !" until someone^ mildly suggested "carbolic," .and so it was. The fact of Ilie matter is, the children of the care-taker of the Choral Hall are suffering from scarletina, and this was the precaution taken to prevent infection. As the germs of scarletina poison are most insidious, a far more suitable precaution would have been to have closed the hall altogether. Unless something is done speedily to stamp out this disease before the advent of warm weather, a very serious and fatal epidemic will be the result. One doctor told me yesterday he had had thirty case within two months, two of which were fatal. — By-the-way, what very charming, piqmuite little " Evenings" Mrs Barton Ireland gives in Parnell on Fridays. They take the form both of a musical conversazione, and of a the dansante, and are entirely pleasant and socially social. There, so arranged and contrived as

not the one to annoy the other, you can get a game of whist, a little good music or singing, some pleasant sparkling conversation, and a little mild dancing for the too utterly utter. Thus all are pleased, both young and old ; for think, oh ye young ones, beloved of the gods ! what it niust"be to shiver round in crowded ball rooms, night after night, looking after those who very often won't be looked after. Not a gameofwhisttosola.ee the weary hours, and very seldom a decent cup of coffee or glass of claret cup. The "Duchess," this deponent, knoweth by sad experience only too well. Think, then, what, an elysium Mrs Barton Ireland's " Evenings" must be, where there is not only the "madding crowd" for you, but for her also, a moderate sip out of the sparkling chalice of pleasure. —The last fashionable craze in London has been Ihe "Okie English Fayre " held in London in the Royal Albert Hall for the building fund of the new Chelsea Hospital for Women, the first stone of which was laid by the Princess of Wales. The Hall was laid out as a minature street terminating with an Elizabethian mansion, and the centre was occupied by a may-pole. Here the jeuncsse cloree of old England, in dresses of the time of Elizabeth, sold their wares to an admiring audience, and the struggle in the seething crowd that overflowed the centre was beyond the imagination of a a Dante — Inferno was nothing to it. Many ladies paid their entrance fee of ten shillings, who Avere first soaked in the rain outside—unable to get in, and then squeezed to a jelly inside—unable to get out, without having after all seen anything worth mentioning. The funds of the Hospital, however, were largely benefited, and many a languishing great lady saw for once before her a bit of genuine fun. One fine-looking specimen of the La-de-da sold so many pairs of babies' socks that there were no more left in the " Fayre," and he had to collapse into private society.

— I notice in "Things not generally known" in last week's issue, yon state that in 1840, Thomas Russell was advertising ship's stores and chandlery. Now this Thomas Russell, who lived and died a ship chandler must not he confounded with the father of the great Tom. He Avas a carpenter, that is to say Tom Russell, pere, and a Wesleyan, and the late Mr Outhwaite, then Registrar of the Supreme Court, haying the Wesleyan Mission Money to put out to interest, took young Tom (now great Tom) into his office, as office hoy. He noticed the lad's shrewdness and ability, and taught him to write. In witness whereof his first copy book is still preserved in the archives of the Outhwaite mansion, side by side with a gorgeous missive of invitation from Mr and Mrs Tom Russell of the Pah, to Mr and Mrs and the Misses Outhwaite. Time went on. '-'This is a clever lad," said kind old Outhwaite to the Wesleyan fathers. "Is he? well article him," was the reply. And Tom was articled. How he sped henceforward all the world may tell, only poor Outhwaite got his fingers bitten, because when young Tom passed and set up for himself, he got the Wesleyan Trust money transferred to his own office, and money made money in those days. — The Ponsonby "At Home" eventuated on Friday, the oth inst. The hall was more prettily decorated than ever, with white arum lilies peeping out from amongst the green ferns, and many-coloured flags. There is no suburban Dance Committee anywhere round who decorate with such taste as they do at Ponsonby. But owing to a large ball at Otahuhu given in honor of Miss Ellen Gould's marriage, at least one half of the dancing men of the community were absent, and the result was "desolation ;" whole rows of young ladies sitting down, and this too in Ponsonby Avhere girls never sit down. It was too much. The exertions of the Committee were Herculean, but as they could not cut themselves up into pieces, the result was still the same, about twenty young ladies sitting out every dance. Mrs Masefielcl wore a

happy combination of pink muslin and pink silk ; Mrs Arthur Lewis wore white satin ; Sirs Greenwood, black satin bouilloneed with crimson plush ; Mrs Stevenson, grey silk trimmed with wine colour; Mrs Brigham, lavender silk ; Mrs Waterhouse, black silk ; Mrs Quick looked very pretty in «a tasteful dress of blue silk trimmed with white satin and white lace, white mob cap, white lace and crimson roses ; Miss Lewis, white cashmere trimmed with tartan ribbon ; Miss Home, white grenadine with red roses ; Mrs Gudgeon, cream sateen trimmed with red sateen and old gold ; Miss H. George, white muslin, pale blue Swiss belt ; Miss Harrison, black grenadine skirt with black velvet bodice and gold ornaments ; Miss Dunnett, black grenadine trimmed with gold lace and sequires ; Miss Halstead, green silk ; Miss M. Kelly, white muslin skirt with blue sateen bodice; Miss Barnes, pale blue sateen ; Miss Baker, black grenadine trimmed with mauve silk. There were a great many young ladies there, strangers whose names I do not know, and who could not have come upon a worse occasion, when it was as hard a matter as "catching a tartar" to catch a beau.