LAND AND W A T E K 
jjcccniui-'i lo, iyi-j- 
IIow prrat are our amiics and navies to-day is well illustrated 
by the fact that the King and Queen have been reluct- 
antly compelled to abandon their intention of presenting 
Christinas cards to all men on active service as they did 
last year. The King was personally most desirous of 
continuing thisb6nd of sentiment between himself and his 
sailorsand soldiers, but it was pointed out by the military 
authorities that the work of transport and distribution 
would be well-nigh inijiossible if every man was to 
receive the Koyal card. So their Majesties' kind wish 
had finally to be abandoned. 
Lord Euston's engagement is announced to Lady Borthwick, 
widow of the twentieth Lord Borthwick. onwhose death 
in 1910 this ancient barony, created in 1452, became 
according to Burke, dormant if not extinct ; there is one 
daughter of the marriage now in her thirteenth year. 
Lord Euston, who succeeded his bachelor brother in 
the courtesy title in 1912, has been a widower since the 
spring of 1913 ; he has a family of three,' Lord Ipswich 
and two sisters, and is himself a gi and fat her. He is nipe 
and twenty years younger than his father, the veteran 
Duke of Grafton, who is in his ninety-fifth year. 
Lord Euston's title is a reminder of how many Lon,don distriqts 
have entirely eclipsed the country hamlet or village 
which gave them their name. The Earl of Euston derives 
his title not from a London railway station "or road, biit 
from a small village in Suffolk. 
The late Lord Abergavenny succeeded to the very ancient 
honours of his House in 1868, when he was 42. Eight 
years later Queen Victoria, on tlic recommendation of 
Disraeli, promoted the Earl of Abergavenny to be Marquis 
of Abergavenny and Earl of Lewes. The barony goes 
back to 1450, when Edward Nevill, a grandson, through 
his mother, of John of Gaunt, was summoned to Parlia- 
ment as Baron Bergavenny. It is one of the very few 
existing titles that finds a place in Shakespeare. The 
present Lord Abergavenny has been an invalid since 
his youth, and is unmarried. Lord Henry Nevill, who 
has no surviving son, is the heir-presumptive. 
Ur. and Mrs. Lord— Mr. Lord is M.F.H. of the Cotswold — 
were in town last w^ek, putting up at Almond's, which 
is a favourite hotel mth hunting people. They were 
lunching in Almond's restaurant with their daughters 
and Mr. Kingcote, and at the next table were Major and 
Mrs. Wilmot Sitwell. Almond's, as I know by ex- 
perience, is one of the t)leasantest hotels to stop, [at, 
Branchini.ever since he has owned it. has prided himself 
on making it a comfortable liome in every sense of tlie 
word for all who stay there. And he has succeeded. ', 
The Georgian House at the end of Dorset Street, which Mr. 
and Mrs. Bonham Carter have taken, is now almost out 
of the decorator's hands. It is a charming house with 
plenty of room, and that solid warm look about it which 
is common to most red brick houses of the period. 
There was the old famiUar air of fashionable bustle and scurry 
in the corridors of the Ritz the other day when I was 
lunching there. In the restaurant were many well- 
known faces. A wedding breakfast (to use the old- 
fashioned phrase) was in progress in the Marie Antoinette 
room, to my mind the most beautiful dining room in 
London. The tables were glorious with white and pink 
carnations and maidenhair fern and we, the luncheonites, 
left the restaurant to the strains of the \^■edding March, 
meeting on our way out a small multitude of ladies who 
were assembling to take part in Lady Coghlan's bridge 
tournament for providing comforts for the wounded. 
Altogether, it was the old Ritz, and its liveliness 
exhilarating. It inclined one towards Christmas shopping. 
So I wandered up Bond Street until arrested by the flower- 
bright windows at the end of the Royal Arcade of my 
friend Mr Goodyear. There is no F.nton who under- 
Snds the spirit of Christmas better than he. Every- 
thing he pre^pares is gav and jolly and cheerful ; he 
knols ust the sort of merry toy tliat makes the children 
laugh Here you sec the English idea of Christmas 
merr ment at its best, and if you go to Rumpelmayer s 
^ St lames's Street you behold the French idea. Con- 
rasrini tlftwo you Ll be suiprised to find that while 
there are obvious differences, the agreement between the 
two nations on essential points is extraordinarily dose. 
We both-English and French-beUeve in brightness ; we 
both put faith in laughter, and we both keep mere coarse- 
ness and materialism in the background. One might 
easily write an article on this subject, taking (Toodyear and 
Rumpelmayer as the text. Each, too, has made his own 
sacrifice to the war. For over a year M. Rumpelmayer 
lias served in the French Army, and his brotiier, who used 
to be with him in London, died on active service at 
Lemnos. Mr. Goodyear's only son, who was his rigiit 
hand in business, is now Captain Goodyear, R.A. He 
has served at the Front, came home to train another 
battery and just as he was about to leave with it for the 
firing "line was stricken down with appendicitis. I am 
glad to say he is now out of danger. Last week Queen 
Alexandra paid a visit to the Royal Arcade and was 
evidently much pleased with all she saw. 
Very curious is it how the lives of certain human beings seem 
"to be charted out before they are out of their teens— 
their methods defined, their triumphs denoted and even 
the causes of decay designated. It was so with Stephen 
Phillips. His command of sonorous language and his 
devotion to opulent diction made themselves apparent 
before he was sixteen, but in those early days his powers 
as an actor were even more notable. When at school at 
Oundle he played Bob Acres in " The Rivals," and Mr. 
Puff in " The Critic " with an abihty that attracted the 
attention of hardened critics, and for him to go on 
the stage was a natural course That he won so slight 
a success as an actor in after life is probably due to his 
response to the stronger appeal of a higher art. 
He was a poet rather than a playwright. Whether a close 
association with cathedral music (his father, who survives 
him, was for many years Precentor of Peterborough 
Cathedral) had fostered in him a love for broad volumes 
of sound, it is not possible to say, yet one cannot help 
feeling that many of his finest passages were written 
to be declaimed in a vast building through which the 
gorgeous syllables might echo and re-echo. It seems as 
though he had aspired to be a second " organ voice of 
England," and his success if not entirely complete was 
at any rate very considerable. 
It is to be hoped that so far as restaurants are concerned 
there will be some relaxation of the restricted hours for 
Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. It cannot be said 
that festivity on these occasions is wrong, even at a time 
like this. Heaven knows there is enough depression 
already, and to create more is surely sinful. I understand 
that as usual the restaurants of London will make things as 
cheerful as they can for their patrons. Prince's, for 
instance, will have a special dinner on Christmas Day, 
and hopes to have a supper on New Year's Eve. But this 
of course must depend on the authorities who in past 
years have shown themselves very sensible on the point. 
I have been asked to mention that the well-known Hospital 
for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street is sorely in 
need of funds. i\Iucli of its former revenue has been 
diverted to the manifold purposes of war. Yet there 
is no institution which is more worthy at all times of 
generous support. Christmas is the Children's Festival, 
so 1 would ask readers of L.\nd and Water to include 
among their Christ. nas presents a cheque for the Children's 
Hospital in Great Ormond Street, Hermes. 
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