SOCIAL. AND GENERAL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3458, 24 February 1912, Page 10

SOCIAL. AND GENERAL NEWS.

A Paris husband, suing for a divorce, gives as his sble reason for his petition that, being unable to afford a maid, he has to do up the back of his wife’s dress every day, and sometimes several times a day. If he goes to the theatre his enjoyment'is previously marred by the fact that madame usually wears a princesso robe which has 49 buttons, and he generally finds that he has made a mistake in the fastening after he is about halfway through. He appeals to the law, therefore, to release him from his slavery.

The jewels of the Russian royal family, which are of an enormous value, are kept in the Kremlin, where they are looked after by 150 officers who have retired from the army. The Italian Crown jewels are guarded in a subterranean chamber on a little island ill the Tiber. The Crown treasures of Austria are in the custody of the Imperial Bank. The Austrian jewels are of great value, but of those of Germany the same cannot be said. These are also in the custody of a bank. The Bulgarian jewels, valued at £'600,000, are kept at a castle on the banks of the Danube. Most of the French State jewels have been dispersed, but some of great value are to be seen at the Louvre. The vogue for earrings lias increased very much of late in the homeland, and London society is said to be returning to a Victorian belief in their becomingness. Earrings are, in fact, worn with all toilettes, and are by no means considered in bad taste with country dress, as used to be the case a few years ago. In fact, in making a selection from the numbers of ornaments which most women possess nowadays, many considerations are involved, and shape, style, and color are chosen with regard not only to questions of appropriateness and matter of dress, but the particular stones and settings are selected which agree with the appearance, special moods and feelings of the wearer. An amusing story is being told on the boulevards about a fraud perpetrated on a famous society woman, who is bitten by the craze for extremely small dogs now prevalent in Paris. A few days ago she bought from a street hawker for a large sum what looked like the smallest griffon ever seen. When she took it home it promptly ran up the curtains, and when it was captured,by the servants it turned out to he a rat, sewn into a dog’s skin.

The annuoncement was made in Berlin last week that the Kaiser’s daughter. Princess Victoria Louise, is betrother to the Grand Duke Adolph Frederick of Alecklenburg-Strehtz. Princess Victoria Louise is the Kaiser s only daughter, and celebrated her 20th birthday last September. Her fiance is iust ten years older. A "beauty-doctor” who undertook to provide new skins for old in Paris, had to defend a suit for £IOOO damages, brought by a lady who alleged that lie has spoiled her good looks for life. It is said that the “beauty doctor” undertook to remove all wrinkles and restore the perfect skin of youth by a special treament. The charge for a new face was £IOO, and for “le complet” £2OO. The patients were shut up in the dark for a fortnight, and the skin then treated with a special unguent. The immediate results were entirely satisfacory, . but the plaintiff asserted that after a few weeks the old wrinkles returned, and became twice the former depth, while the hair fell . out, and could not be induced to grow • again. It turns out that the assembling of ; about twenty young and no longer i young women from various parts of | Allentown, Pennsylvania, and surround- j ing towns at a prominent street corner j recently was the result of a joke per- j petrated by a hoaxer unknown. The j man, whoever he was, inserted an at- j tractive ad. in a newspaper, saying he ; was looking for a wife, and he got about one hundred replies. It seems he wrote to all the women asking them to meet him at a certain place at a , given hour. Each, of course, thought \ she was the only one, and when so many ; of them got together the effect was ’ ridiculous.