WATER WINGS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 109, 31 January 1908, Page 3

WATER WINGS.

It is high time (says an. Australian paper) that "wings" were banished s.t tho'dpaside. Their danger was recognised some time ago; and they disappeared. 'Unfomi'natoly' there has 1 been al revival; In most cages thbv consist of a .pillowcase,' tied'-iri' 'the middle, so that each end balloons out, and forms \a variety of buoy. Properly, adjusted they are fairly safe, but no sooner do'tUey get out' of position than they constitute- veritable death traps. If no one is at hand, a child wearing wings that have slipped out of place will-drown, or, as happened a few days ago, die of fright before ho can right himself.- Of course everything points to the necessity of all-children learning to twim, but in the' meantime they are much safer to'leave so-called, life-savers severely alone.

"E. ..Nesbit," who opohe<l the "Tribune," toy exhibition at New York recently revealed in her vivid little speech the genius that has mado her books the delight of n wholo generation of children. "If she Bad any success in writing books," she said, "it was because she could not help remembering what she herself felt as ajchild. At that-mo-ment, for instance, when making-her. speech, she felt as she. used to do at the 'drawingroom evening,' at school whon the mistross said, 'Edith, my dear, will you please go to the piano and oblige ur> with your little picce?' 'And of course I had to do it, feeling all elbows and knees, njy hands, very red and hot, and my ears extraordinarily hot, and perform that piece when 1! could hardly feel tho keys of tho piano.' Sho hailed the passing of the old birch-rod; system. She remembered the fag-end of it, whon she was 'shut up for threo days in an attic, not seeing a single soul, becauso I could not do Jong division at tho age of eight.'" "E. Nesbit," who is Mrs. Hubert Bland in private life, is the mother of two boys, and two girls. It comes as news to many that tho colours of our gowns are actually regulated by specialists, who issue colour cards annually to the great manufacturers of dress material. Tho card of this Union dus Syndicates, in Paris, gives chief prominenco to, and incidentally promises the popularity of, pinky old roses and lobelia tones of blue violet. A trio of beaver shades and threo rosewood tints aro also commauding. the attention of tho manufacturers. Shades 'of apiethyst are promised an important place in the world of fashion, wliilo, as a follow 011 to the, at first, startling combination of' blue and green, wo are threatened with rod and purple. Smoko grey and more colours are both used with nurple and nurple-red tones, while a touch of gold and black ia insisted on in many costugiea.