LADY BALFOUR’S ATTACK.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17979, 26 March 1930, Page 13

LADY BALFOUR’S ATTACK.

‘THE VULGAR CROWD OF TO-DAY.’ Lady Frances Balfour’s two volumes of reminiscences, No Obllviscarls (“Dinna Forget”), abound in revealing glimpses of Victorian and Edwardian celebrities. A daughter of file eighth Duke of Argyll, the wife of Mr Eustacs Balfour, the architect, a zealous suffragist, and the friend of political leaders in .all parties, Lady Frances Balfour has led an eventful life. When she llrst lived in London. “Home was the place where we lived, and which contained all our known world. The restaurant of today was little frequented, even 30 years ago. Women of position and good breeding were not in the habit of dining in places of public resort. It would have marked them sis of a class of whom publicity was necessary, though the most “light” among them would have been disgusted at appearing in the primitive nakedness which is the adornment of the vulgar crowd today.” Lord Balfour. Of her brother-in-law, Lord whose guest she often was at WhitUngehame, Lady Frances Balfour has naturally much to say: “I don’t suppose there was ever a man who was so little interested in himself, or was less aware of the interest of the outside world. It was due partly to his lethargy about detailing any facts in general talk, but still more to a provoking habit of mind of forgetting all details, especially- if he had played any part in them.”

Few things ever ruffled Lord Salisbury. But when me cares of the Foreign Office had been unusually strenuous he would he heard to mutter “Bulgaria” as he missed his aim at billiards.

Lady Frances gives us glimpses of Viscount Cecil in the early days of motoring driving a motor-car backwards for 20 miles when he could not induce it lo advance. She has this to say of some women of fashion:

“I shall always maintain that the woman who needs perfumed salts in her bath, many coloured powders for her nose and face, who covers her lips with lipstick (revolting word), who manicures herself by the hour, and massages for the rest of the day, is a slave to luxury. . . ."