London, Jan. 15.
The prettiest compliment imagin" able was paid by the Duke of Kent to his Duchess in a speech at a banquet In Athens after the recent royal wedding. "Greece," he said, "has given me a wife. 1 shall. probably. never know what the influence of the Duchess has done for me. It is incalculable as the all pervading Influence of "Hellenist art, But I now that it has been the best possible influence."
The Bosrd of Trade's annual report on all our social doings in 1936] "hatch, match and. despatch"! ivories, incomes and crime—has just been published and shows that—in that year there were 401,704. mar nages, the highest number ever: recorded, nearly 4,000 more than the previous' best average between 1920- }22 when moreover all Ireland was included, which makes the 1936 figures'even better than they appear.
At a time when we are mightily concerned with the future of mar riage and the family, our benevolent Government, so paternal in all its ways, might have the Duke of Kent's speech nicely printed and" sent to leach one of those 401,704 couples. Indirectly the wives might take as much notice of it as the husbands. The same Board of Trade report records that divorces also. were a record, at 4,699, in 1936. This year with Mr. A. 'P.'Herbert's divorce Act to help they are likely: to be more.
We frequently hear of schools for brides, in house-keeping and the like. T mentioned one last week. I should like to start several on the importance of looking tidy, especially for young wives of the poorer classes, Admittedly the wife of a young clerk cannot always be buying new frocks, Jand running a house single-handed, with children as well Is a dishevelling process, Yet it doe? not take much [trouble to tidy up dress and hair, especially hair, before the husband comes home from work. It is ex traordinary to see how girls, smart Jana pretty before marriage, let themselves go to pieces after it.
"Darling." cries the hitherto ney tactful husband, in the latest adver-fisement of a celebrated remedy agains, "night starvation," you are the most, attractive wife any man ever had." There is a great deal of tke Duke of Kent's "incalculable Influence" in looking neat.
Be Middle-Aged and Like It Husbands, meanwhile, might learn something from a speech at the New Health Club this week, by Dr. Leonard Williams, author of several books fon the art of living. Any man who had reached 50 without learning to. Keep fit must be a fool, he said: kind, of fool He even deserves The italics are mine, and who wilt say that Dr. Williams' strictures are "To women he was much kinder, Jobesity in middle age was in 90'per cent. due, not to overeating, but. to some glandular trouble not yet understood, he sakd, nkeayagitart, a bad, counselors Sha "women ieigSten themselves quite finnecemarily and. prematurely. leaks ad hebute muck elder than thet And apropos, here is Gracie Ficlds Dame Gracie Fields now—writing im the "News Chronicle "this week fon how it fects to be 40, glorying in the fact that she is 40, looking forward to as much joy every day os she has ever had, and incidentally preaching the tonic effect of a dab rouge and lipstick."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.