FEMININE CHIT-CHAT. The Shut-In Society.

Evening Post, Volume L, Issue 48, 24 August 1895, Page 1 (Supplement)

FEMININE CHIT-CHAT. The Shut-In Society.

Motto— "Help One Another." The objeot of our Society is to enable "Shut-in" invalids to receive a little brightness and comfort from the oataide world in the shape of letters, pipers, and books. I nave a number of kindly " Eree-helpers " ready to help in this work, and any "Shut-in" may be corresponded with on communioating by letter to "Clio," E.L.0., Evkotnq Post. There is no subscription, no committee, no fuas, and no publicity. Several persons have asked me to send for papers, magazines, eto., for our " Shutins, but, I regret to say, I am.unable to do bo. They oan be either left at the Evening Post, or " Clio," c/o Mrs, Innes, No. 20, Oriental Bay. I heard with great pleasurejhow successful and pleasant was the annual gathering of the Boys' Institute last week. It reflects the greatest credit both on the boys and those gentlemen who give so much time and take so much trouble to teach our boys to turn out healthy, manly, self-reliant good men It is a work that deserves the greatest support, for it will prevent the spread of l&rrikinism) and it should make our young New Zealanders the pride of their country. I hear the gymnastic drill and ambulance drill were well worth seeing as performed by the boys, and the brass band was a decided success. I wish the boys and their friends and instructors every success during the coming year. I have already touched on the necessity of every woman, whether young, middle-aged, or old, being able to nurse and cook for the siok. I would have both these necessary branches of a woman's education taught at the State schools. Many of our teachers have attended ambulance lectures and should be able to impart many of the simple rudiments of nursing 1 , for what a comfort it is to be nursed by one who knows what she is about. Cooking for the siok is a distinct art, and the patient depends on the way the food is cooked almost as much as upon the doctor. Any medical man will support me in this. I have heard a doctor say that he has been almost in despair when he has seen a oup of beef-tea brought to his patient ' — a muddy watery mixture with grease floating on the top. The poor patient turns away sickened at the nauseous compound. I should be very pleased to give some notes on Sick Cooking in this column, if our readers would like them. At a lunch party recently (says a writer in the Gentlewoman) I heard an acute observer of life remark " that only quite elderly women are really natural in weir manners and behaviour." I thought the observation profoundly true. Even babies in their perambulators are affected, little girls waggle their thort skirts in selfconscious vanity when they cross a room, and in all the world there is not a more really artificial being than a well-brought-up girl of nineteen or twenty years of age. Whereas what deliriously simple-minded old ladiea we have known, full of fun and gaiety, absolutely unconscious and forgetful of their own personality. Generally speaking, women who refuse to marry are among the best of their sex. Some people think they prefer single-blessedness 1 because they have a "mission" which ' calls them to some useful work or other. No doubt many of them do employ their time with great benefit to their fellow-creatures ; atill, (says one of the sex) I think they would have been willing to marry, had they I met one whom they could love. Either they are faithful to the memory of the past ; or 1 the man whom they could have married has never crossed their path. And, being ', women of the utmost honour and reotitude, ; they prefer ' ' old maidism ' ' to marrying for the sake of marrying. I know a dear old lady 1 of this type. "No! I never .had a love 'story," she said to me. " One or two men have asked me, but I never yet saw ' him ' I whom I could have loved." Talmage says: " Two cradles, eaoh with its tiny occupant, commence rocking ; one may be thousands of miles from the other. Through the , long years those oradles are rooking towards each other; when they meet there is a ? marriage made in Heaven." But maybe one oooupant dies, and then P Well ! We , have the woman who refuses to marry. 'f RECIPES, f Eggs in Max.— Half fill a flat pie-dish n with milk ; then carefully break four eggs o into it ; add a little pepper and salt, and a o little chopped parsley, and put the dish in . c a brisk oven for three or four minutes till n the eggs set ; serve with buttered toast. v Butisbbd Eooa. — Put one tablespoonful n of "butter into a small saucepan ; melt it ; o then beat three eggs ; add a little pepper n and salt, and pour into the hot butter ; stir 0 over the fire for one minute till the eggs d thicken; have some buttered toast ready, h pour on tKe mixture, and serve hot. „ Spongb Caxb Pudding.— Got a stale c sponge cake ; soak it in milk ; then beat it It up with three eggs, a little sugar, a flavourlr ing of essence of vanilla ; put a border o jt puff paste round a pie-dish, and a layer of }r jam at the bottom ; then put your mixture 3 . on the top, and bake say 16 minutes. Bread can be used instead of cake, but more sugar must be added, and a bit of butter. , Cocoanut Sandwich^ Cake — One pound of flour, quarter of a pound of butter, half a pound of sugar, quarter of .a pound of ;8; 8 desiccated cocoanut, one tea.poonful of baking powder, three eggs, and a little milk ; 16 mix the dry ingredients, and then add the »S beaten eggs and milk. This shonld not be IB a stiff dough, but slack; pour into two ly shallow tins, and bake in a quick oven 3 about 10 or 15 minutes ; turn out one cake ? on the table, spread with jam ; turn out the' >d other cake, press it on the jammed one, ie and cut into squares ; put icing sugar on the 61 top> _______ ___ ie 1 \a According to a toientist, a rise or fall of price in cereals is synonymous with a rise er or fall of crime. c- There are about 700 golf clubs at present :e. in Great Britain, with about 35,000 players. B h A self-propelling bicycle is » Swedish ij. invention. It is run by a litile gasoline motor. ** According to Sir Henry Irving, the 8H theatres and music-halls of Mondon ire give employment to 100,000 people, and es represent a capital of £3,000,000. Another »n prominent theatrical manager is of opinion that those figures are rather under the ye mark, his estimate of the capital being by £4,000,000, and of the persons employed a 150,000. j e The latest fashionable complaint in , America is the "elevator knee." It occurs " c to those who are in the habit of constantly using lifts.