## A CANADIAN " BRAIN WAVE. "

The happy idea of presenting H.M. Queen Mary with a number of gifts suitable for distribution amongst our soldiers and sailors came originally, we believe, from Canada, two years ago.

Last year the Hon. Lady Lawley, who is the Head of Queen Mary's Needlework Guild in England, sent to the numerous branches, suggesting that they might like to take part in the presentation. The result was that gifts came pouring in by the thousand.

## "THE QUEEN'S SILVER WEDDING SHOWER."

For weeks it simply rained presents—over half a million of them—so that when it was decided to offer them to Her Majesty upon her silver wedding anniversary, it naturally occurred to someone to call the collection "Queen Mary's Silver Wedding Shower." And what a shower it was! A number of valuable and useful offerings came from British workers in South America—including parcels, addressed in their own handwriting, from children in La Paz, Bolivia—and these, with the rest, resulted in a fine addition to the general downpour.

## AN UNIQUE MAP.

Apart from gifts which were merely intended to minister to the personal comfort or enjoyment of others—such as neckties and nicotine, chocolates and chokers—there was one present of especial interest for the Queen herself. This was a Map of South America—in pale blue and silver—on which were marked the different places affiliated to the Needlework Guild, as well as others from which gifts had been sent. This map had been designed and coloured especially for the occasion by Mr. G. W. Plank, the gifted American artist, whose dainty and whimsical imaginings announcing some Fête or Red Cross appeal, lend the same distinction to the posters of London hoardings that they do to the pages of the familiar *Vogue*.