Ladies' Column.

Clutha Leader, Volume II, Issue 89, 23 March 1876, Page 7

Ladies' Column.

B AEON ESS BURDETT COUTTS.— Pratibal usefulness appears to be the unfailing guide of Lady Burdett-Coutts in her numberless charities. " She offered says the London 'World,' "to restore "the aqueducts of Solomon to Jersusalem~ a city still as dependent for water upon often-dried wells as' it was in the days of Jacob. At home, drinking fountains have been provided by the baroness in all directions, Orie embellishes Victoria Park with a beautiful temple • a work of similar art and utility adores the chief entrance to the Zoological Gardens ; and some of the cattle troughs which the wayfarer notices at suburban road-sides are her ladyship's gifts. Nor are the provinces neglected. Only the other, day Lady Burdett-Coutts presented a large drinking fountain to the busiest street in Manchester. The short, modest, and wise speeches which she delivered on that occasion show, with other public utterances, how much the rights-of-women party lose by being unable to count upon the baroness as one of their future legislators, she being a goodnatured dissentient from that loud but melodious agitation. In Spitalfields there is an unpretending sewing-school, were poor women are not only taught, but fed and provided with profitable work, chiefly in making up government contracts . and gratuitous outfits for deserving young men wishing to emigrate. 'Nurses are sent out among the neighboring sick, and stores of medical comforts are always kept ready for them This unpretending house of charity boasts of no imposing committee, of no ostentatious subscription lists, of no expensive staff. Solely supported, it is also superintended by Lady BurdettCoutts herself. Hundreds of poor boys are taught in a night school which she set on foot and wholly supports in the same district." Her great enterprises of national importance might be enumerated, but any attempt to estimate her never-ceasing relief of private distress must fail ; for much of the latter is administered, in confidential silence, by trusted and experienced agents. Her energetic munificence has built churches and schools in desolate districts in London and in the provinces. She has planted the Church of England itself in several of our colonies, by endowing bishoprics in Australia, in the Cape of Good Hope, and in British Columbia, at an aggregate cost that might haye purchased a principality of broad acres for her own enjoyment. A society for improving* the condition of aborigines was also instituted at her suggestion and by her aid. Her interest in every effort to promote religious knowledge has never slumbered. She provided funds for Sir Henry Jame's topographical survey of Jerusalem, and she employed agents to obtain ancient manuscripts from the east. for the verification of Scripture. Only lately she imported from Janina, in the Epirus, a collection of Greek volums dating from the ninth to the seventeenth century. A curious coincidence happened respecting one of these, a codex of the Epistles and Apocalypse which Lady Burdett-Coutts presented to the Cholmeley School at Highg'ate. The question arose, where were the Gospels and Acts whicli had been: detached from this: volume ? These may have fallen into Continental, Asiatic, or American hands. Search was made be several learned bibliologists, including one of the New Testament company of revisers. At last a pundit all -the way from the United. States pointed "out that he had seen something like the first portion of the manuscript in the British Museum. There, sure enough, it "was discovered. A pply the doctrine of chances to this coincidence, consider that there is ho corner of the Christian world to which this missing- portion of the New Testament might not have strayed, and calculate the odds against its having at last found its way within a mile or two of its counterpart !'-■.' | Aff Egyptian Princess' Obsei QliiES. — Haneui; Zeinum, the favourite | daughter of the Khedive of Egypt, only fifteen years of age, recently died in 'Alexandra of typhus fever. The body was "taken to Cairo, and -placed in the Kasrel Nile Palace oh the day 'of her death, and the. interment took place next morning*. An immense funeral procession. 'followed', consisting of three thousand priests, -twenty-four bullocks, thirty camels, and twenty waggons laden with bread, dates/cooked meats and : vegetables,- and ; many thousand of the -populace'.: Silver: coin was freely distributed to the poor" people in the streets. ' The coffin was of simple rough-, hewn wood, and r the -corpse - was sewn up in linen cloth. Upon the coffin were placed -the jewels of the princess, worth a million. and a half of dollars. After the "burial the bullocks were slaughtered, roasted,: and: consumed by 'the priests- •' ••>.--.<> - A ; It is quite dreadful, the spirit of envy and.-- enmity that ' exists . /between, St. Louis -and Louisville. A few. days' ago. one of these bad men who are "hired on a paper published on; the former |city, : ; desiring. to. hint th.at. the Louisville ladies navelarge feetj said 1 : " A Louisville girl was "shot on fhe foot a day or : tvyp ago, -and, the-; doctors, are, , now engaged in. mining for the ball. ' One. of 'them'h'as wdrked his passage 1 into tlio foot for l sd-g reat a distance that they' ; are"" obliged; to let his provisions down, to, him 1 by /a : rape." :1 -

The rapidity wiih which the country lasses adapt themselves to.the circumstances and fashion with which they : are surrounded, and especially the fashions, is simply marvellous: On Monday a lady who employes > several domestics had a new servant from tho country— fresh,, indeed, from the rural districts;. a bright-eyed,, rosy-cheeked damsel, who blushed whenever any of the male members of the household looked at her ; a girl whose hair was combed smoothly back from off a tanned forehead ; whose dress and sleeves to it, came up to her throat and down to her feet. On Tuesday her hair went up on the top of her head, and was coiled up over a — something. On Wednesday she cut the sleeves of her dress, turned it in at tho throat, pinned it back and flung it out behind, and could look everyone in the face for halfan-hour without the hue of modesty showing through her prepared-chalk complexion. The next day she completed the degradation ,by cutting off all but an inch or two of her front hair.

Maharajah Holkar has appointed a native Christian lady, Mrs Ramaswemi, the wife of a clergyman at Indore on a salary of one hundred rupees (about fifty dollars), as tutoress to the zananas of Bala Sahib, the young

prince. The recent birth of a daughter to Mrs Edinburgh increases the number of Queen Victoria's grandchildren to twenty-seven, of whom twenty-four are still living. Altogether, the Quoen has now thirty-three children and grandchildren living, and three of her children are not yet married. The Princess Natalie de Keschko, recently married to Prince Milan of Servia, is described as looking like a Greek statue stepped down from its pedestal, and as having the hair of a goddess when goddesses were believed in.

Quite a little remance occurred recently in Washington. Miss Lizzie Schumaker was once among the belles of. New Orleans. Her parents, once wealthy, died and left her poor. For tvyo years she held a clerkship in the Attorney-General's ofiice. Three years ago a Swedish gentleman, Mr Nils Mitander, residing in New York, met her, and must have been interested, for recently he re-visited Washington, proposed, and pressed his suit so successfully that he would nut return to New York without his bride. He allowed no time for trou&seau or elaborate preparation. Fortunately Miss Schumaker had never parted- with the family diamonds. She was also the possessor of one handsome toilette. Wednesday evening accom-' pained by the Hon. Charles Conrad, o ( Louisiana, ex-Secretary of War, and Miss Adams and Miss Weeks, of New Orleans, the bridal pair quietly repaired to the Epiphany Church and were married. These things will occasionally happen, and ifc is so nice I It is pleasent to think that there are some defenders of women besides their own sex. The crime of stinginess, so much complained of in ladies, is often due to the very scanty pocket-money with which the lords of creation furnish them, who themselves nobly refuses to ," look twice at a shilling *" and we now quote a very sensible remark by a new author to the same: effect : "It is not true that the sin of extravagance lie's always at the woman's door. Men's personal expenses are not commonly so evident as women's are. A man spends money in a hundred ways, of" which; his neighbors know nothing*, while the extravagance of a woman is almost certain to be ostentatious. Indulgence, is his object, display he»*s ; and so his sins are covered, while hers advertise themselves :" a • sentence that. , ought to be written in letters of gold in every household — and paid for by the husband. ,

Professor Max Muller esteems women. At the recent local examination in Manchester for prizes and certificates at Oxford and Cambridge he said that bad annually sent his daughters to take part in these examinations, "and; he proposed to continue sending them until'their education was finished.- ? Five young American ladies have lately receiyed '■ honour certificates" from the Oxford University examiners. The "Lancet" on Lady Physicians.—The London 'Lancet' is the. well-known organ of what may be styled, the liberal or progressive section of the medical-profession in England. The paper has now pronounced in favor of the bill which has been introduced'intoParliament for granting te women, the same facilities for entering the profession which are allowed to ihen. The editor is, indeed,.. not altogether; reconciled to the -notion/of the' practice of medicine- being undertaken -by wome'nV He seeS *'speciaP difficulties" in the way. But he conrageously adds : " We are hofc; afraid the profession by^arge numbers of com-, petitory in the * forni -of girl-graduates. At any rate, we T prefer "* tb rely on the ' 7pro fection r afforded by ? " special difSr - culties" rather, than that afforded by laws which'hayeyah ungracious Jook , of exclusion.'!!; yThis;liberaljpronouncement'from. such yan-. influential; source^ 'ca viino6;faU;,to'h'aye a good effect. ; - ■ — ■■ - •> •*—... '