OVER THE TEA-CUPS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 167, 15 July 1911, Page 15

OVER THE TEA-CUPS.

THE "SEASON." The London season is a combination of mysteries, writes Filson Young in the "Saturday Review." No one manages it or is responsible for it; there is no one, except perhaps the King, whose presence or absence makes much difference to itit is a thing that happens, and, like the temporal seasons of the year, it begins and ends quite independently of the official dates assigned to it on the calendar And what does it consist of? Primarily, of the movements of a very small world indeed. There are perhaps'forty important hostesses in Londun, everyone with perhaps five hundred names on her list, and of these five hundred names at least two hundred will he common to all the forty lists. The other three hundred are made up of almost innumerable circles which are grouped around the central circle, intersecting it a*! each other at various points, and moving like a constellation round some fixed star. WINTER PRECAUTIONS. Doctors are distributing quite a lot of advice in connection with a winter that, while not exceptional, is still suffi ciently trying. "Keep your wrists and ankles warm," says he, and the hotwater bottle, usually despised by the hale and hearty, is being quite warmly advocated. Incidentally the demand for bed socks was never greater. It is always amusing to the woman who is not above profiting by harmless little comforts to hear people with pale faces and very ruddy noses declaring that they never pamper themselves. It might be better for them if they did, and the dictum of a very distinguished London doctor is certainly not to be ignored by women. This doctor maintains that the attempt to sleep with cold feet is not only a great producer of wrinkles, but has a bad effect both on the cojiplexion and the digestion. The working girl especially, who scorns the hotwater bottle as a very harmless harbinger of a night's rest, goes to her business with a lowered vitality next; day. RIGHTS OF CHINESE WOMEN. The most essential ana conspicuous mark of heathenism in China to-day is the division of the sexes. It divides the empire into two classes, and robs each of the help which the other is intended to supply. It is astonishing to see to what extent this rule of division is carried. In the families of the better class the male and female members are kept strictly apart. The different sexes even have different servants. Brothers and sisters are not allowed to associate together after the boys "begin their studies, which is usually at the age of five years. The social gathering where both sexes meet is not only unknown, ibut is regarded with abhorrence. To them no country could show greater signs of moral degeneracy and barbarism than to indulge in mixed social gatherings. Even the working people seldom appear in the streets with their wives, and on the rare occasions when they do the man walks behind his wife to see that she conducts herself properly. The law requires a man to mourn three years for the death of a father and one hundred days for the death of a mother, but a man would be ostracised socially if he gave any signs of grief at the death of his wife. Probably many a Chinese husband becomes fond of his wife after marriage—he has no opportunity previously—but it is a breach of good manners to give any sign of such a nature. Two intimate friends engaged in conversation would never think of mentioning the name of any female relative. That common question, "How is your wife?" is never heard In China, and would be considered a gross and unpardonable insult even between the most intimate friends. Chinese gentlemen never mention, look at, or speak to members of the other sex except tho?e of their own family. In order that there shall be no embarrassing chance meetings when calling on a friend, the visitor h*ralds his approach by coughing as he nears the house, thus giving the tionnble females time to make their es cape. It would be a sign of poor breeding to fail to give this sign. MARRIAGE WITH JAPANESE. No English or American girl should ever intermarry .with one of the Japanese race; all her training and habits are dead against such a proceeding. To the maiden the three vows of obedience to which the woman of Japan bows her beautifully coiffured head would seem like a nightmare, or else a screaming farce. The dainty little Jap has to practise unswerving, unmurmuring obedience to her father as lon<r as she dwells under his roof. When she quits her home for that of her husband, she has to swear the same stern vow to her husband and his parents, and —thought of unmixed horror—even to the wife of her husband's elder brother; and then, added to all these visions of constant kow-tow-ing, she has, on the death of her husband, to swear unswerving obedience to her son, or sons, if she has them. It does not sound as if it were exactly the thing for the modern girl. Divorce in Japan is so easy, should the wife fail to find favour in her husband's eyes; and the position of a divorced wife is unpleasant everywhere, particularly in Japan, and she can be divorced for such trivial reasons—for talking too much, for jealousy, for not being sufficiently demure and thankful when words of reproof or of advice are administered to her, with the best intentions, no doubt, by her husband's relatives. There are less trivial pretexts for divorce, of course, such as loving another cian better than her husband, loving not wisely but too well, or for failing to present her lord and master with little replicas of his neat little Japanese self; nut. these little laws, of course, hold good, more or less, everywhere. The position of woman is no doubt improving in Japan; nevertheless, the woman in Japan, no matter what her social position, is regarded more or less from the point of view of a chief slave. The wife waits on l?er husband at meals, listens with meekly bowed head to the words of wisdom of her better half, and salaams in a lowly fashion at his approach and departure. Should her husband deem her too beautiful for safety, he makes her dye her little pearly teeth, and one receives quite -a shock when one becomes the recipient of a whole-hearted Japanesey smile from a wedded beauty so defaced. Of course among the upper classes, and those who have travelled and sojourned in strange lands, where the social laws regarding women are less barbarous, the position of women has greatly changed, and they are treated more like reasoning, thinkiing human beings.