Foreign News Notes, Aug. 3, 1925

In the grounds of Buckingham Palace, two royal tea parties were given by the King and Queen. These simple, democratic functions, inaugurated after the War, are said to do the King more good than a stiff Scotch and soda. Peers, Ambassadors, Princes of India, clergymen, social leaders of every strata —some in toppers, patent leather shoes and formal afternoon attire, others in humble headgear, stouter footwear and business clothes—all rubbed shoulders. The King smiled. Americans were present: Mrs. Joseph R. Lamar, Atlanta, Ga.; Mrs. E. M. Townsend, New York; Mrs. John Lowell, Boston; Mrs. N. T. Bacon, Providence, R. I.; Mrs. A Crittenden Smith of Nebraska; Mr. and Mrs. Howard C. Heinz, Pittsburgh; Conde Nast and Miss Natica Nast, New York; Miss Louise Berid and Colonel and Mrs. Robert Roos, San Francisco; Mrs. R. F. Tucker, a daughter of Colonel and Mrs. E. M. House; Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas and Mrs. Capper, Representative Cordell Hull of Tennessee and Mrs. Hull, and many another.

The season’s entertainment—that is from about the beginning of June until about the end of July—is alleged to cost the King no less than $400,000.

At the first Garden Party, as the tea parties are called, the King wore a gray top hat and a gray morning suit. The Queen wore a mauve dress and hat. At the second Party, an enormous number of men wore gray toppers and morning suits while the women radiated mauve.

At her town house in St. James’s Square, Lady Astor gave one of her brilliant dinners, followed by one of her equally brilliant dances. Her guests were, as usual, a mixed lot. Present were:

The Queen of the Belgians, the Queen of Rumania, the Duke and Duchess of York, the Infanta Beatrice of Spain, the Archbishop of Canterbury, J. H. Thomas (onetime engine driver and Colonial Secretary in the Labor Cabinet), the Marquis and Marchioness of Salisbury, Mr. and Mrs. J. L. Garvin (he is Editor of The Observer, London Sunday newspaper), the Foreign Secretary and Mrs. Austen Chamberlain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mrs. Winston Churchill, Prince and Princess Obolensky, the Colonial Secretary and Mrs. Amery, the Duke and Duchess of Portland, Sir Edward and Lady Grigg, Admiral of the Fleet Lord Beatty with Lady Beatty, Sir James Barrie, the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, Lady Patricia Ramsay (former Princess “Pat,” daughter of the Duke of Connaught) and, popular bachelor that he is, the 77-year-old Lord Balfour.

By the will of the eighth Duke of Rutland, who left an estate valued at about $4,500,000, the Dowager Duchess, ”best and dearest woman ever born,” received the Arlington Street house (which she has been forced to sell to meet the heavy death duties amounting to about $1,300,000), an automobile, a horse, carriage and about $100,000. Each of his daughters, including Lady Diana Duff Cooper, famed beauty, received about $100,000. The Duke was unable to leave anything to charity “as the heavy taxation and intolerable supertax render impossible any such action.” He hoped that his son, now the ninth Duke, “will not spend his money to purchase unnecessary collections,” but will “take care of his properties and the welfare of his tenants.” Two young Danes, Neils Ventegodt and Emil Ullskov, both of the Viking Club of Copenhagen, surprised the London Rowing Club by landing at their quay, having popped over from Denmark in a row boat. Said one of them:

“It was thrilling to follow the path our Viking ancestors took a thousand years ago when they came to England and plundered in battle with your Kings.”

According to The Daily Graphic, London illustrated journal, American capital is to provide London with the ”largest underground freight subway in he world.”