OVER THE TEA-CUPS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 191, 12 August 1911, Page 15

OVER THE TEA-CUPS.

THE ALTERNATIVE. The young woman sat before her glass, and gazed long and earnestly at the reflection there. She screwed up her face in many ways. She fluffed her hair, and then smoothed it down again. She raised her eyes and lowered them; she showed her teeth and she pressed her lips tightly together. At last she got up, with a weary sigh, and said: "It's no use. I'll be some kind of a reformer." THE TEARKERCHIEF. There are many quaint and pretty customs that prevail in the Tyrol; but none more so than that of the tearkerchief. When a girl is to be married, and just before she leaves her girlhood home for the church, her mother gives her a handkerchief, made of newly spun linen, which is called the tearkerchief. With dt the bride is to dry the tears that are regarded as only natural as she leaves i her home. The tearkerchief is never used after the marriage day; but is laid away with the bride's most cherished possessions until the day of her death, when it as taken out and spread over the face.

A BABY FOR NEWNHAM. Mr Charles P. Trevelyan, M.P., Parliamentary Secretary for the Education Department, created a good deal of amusement in a speech at the annual summer festival of the College for Working Women, Fitzroy-street, when he said he had always been an enthusiast for women's education, and his wife and he had shown it by putting their eldest girl down for Newnham College in order that she might enjoy the excellent education given there. That was when she was six months' old, probably, the earliest entry on record for any women's college. "A HUSBAND FOR A LOUIS." An enterprising retail firm in Tokio (according to a French newspaper), has hit upon a novel method of attaining publicity. Instead of offering as an inducement to purchasers a vase or a fan, every lady purchaser receives a photograph of a young man, good-looking and faultlessly dressed. At the back of the card bearing the likeness is an announcement that every purchaser of goods to the extent of 17/6 will receive a coupon entitling her to participate in a lottery, the prize being the young man, the youngest employee of the house, whose likeness is on the card. It is not stated what happens if the "prize" does not like the "winner." NEW SCHOOL METHODS. From Rome comes news of a new method of teaching that has been instituted by a lady doctor, Signora Montessori, and so su-aeessful has it proved in Italy that, it is now being put into operation throughout Switzerland. It was found that the Froebel system yielded negative results, and the new method—that of teaching children on the family plan—was applied. The children are gathered in a room and made to feel that they are members of one family. There da no discipline or restraint. The pupils move about freely, or group themselves affectionately round their mistress. The teachers have readily taken to the new method, and the local authorities are making the necessary grants for overhauling the educational machinery. RINGS FOR MARRIED MEN. The women of New Jersey are running counter to an old tradition. They are urging the Legislature to pass an act •compelling all married men to wear a ring on the left thumb. Learned writers in the past maintained that the wedding ring must 'be worn on the fourth finger of the left hand, "because from thence there proceeds a particular vein to the heart, the motion whereof you may perceive from the touch of your forefinger." A sixteenth century medical writer claims that he "could raise such as are fallen in a swoon by pinching this joint, and by rubbing the ring of gold with a little saffron; for by this a restoring force that is in it passeth to the heart, and refresheth the fountain of life, unto • which this finger is joined. Wherefore antiquity thought fi't to compass it about with gold." HOW TO KISS IN A PICTURE HAT. History tells us that the greatest revolutions take place in silence, and it is not surprising that the recent change in the art of kissing has passed almost unnoticed. The change is the direct outcome o£ the large-hat vogue, and it is a striking example of what the late Herbert Spencer termed "the adjustment of acts to ends."

Regarded from a distance, a woman's hat, with brim extending half a yard in every direction, has the appearance to a man's eye of a halo round the head of the divinity who wears it. But should a closer approach be called for, the projecting brim, especially if sharp at the edges and reinforced by a "cheval dc frise" of hatpins, acts rather as a ring fence and constitutes a serious obstacle, which needs all a man's resolution to overcome. It has been done, however.

Great as the difficulties undoubtedly are in this case, they are still more serious when the necessity arises for two women, both wearing large hats, to kiss one another. "When Greek me'ets Greek "

Fortunately, the ingenuity of the sex has discovered a solution of the probblem. • In the most successful instances the head is tilted slightly backwards and downwards till the brims of the two hats stand opposite to each other in thv sarae place.

The face is then cautiously advanced, the greatest -care being taken that the 'brims of the hats shall not clash at any point. When the space separating them becomes infinitesimal, and the daylight showing between is reduced to a mere crack, the lips are projected as far as possible from the face. If the operation is skilfully performed a satisfactory conjunction is effected. But the manoeuvre is not complete. A slip may yet be fatal. The greatest caution is taken in disengaging. First, the lips are called in; next, the face is ■cautiously retreated, the brims are moved apart, and the head is taken to its norma] position.

An attempt to execute this delicate manoeuvre by two ladies who had obviously practised it in private was attended with a most lamentable result. The heads, instead of being drooped on opposite sides, as, of course, they must be, were by some misunderstanding lowered in the same direction, and the brims clashed together. A rending sound occurred, and a hasty retreat was necessitated.

Indeed, it as hinted, though it seems incredible, that the custom of kissing at each meeting is falling into desuetude among the younger members of the women's clubs, largely on account of the increased complexity of the practice.