WOMEN IN PRINT.

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 93, 19 April 1916, Page 9

WOMEN IN PRINT.

Special arrangements are being made at tho Sydney-street Soldiers' Club for Easter. Hostesses will be present on Good Friday and Easter Monday, and will provide/refreshments from 11 o'clock in the morning till the usual hour at night. As the sports are not being held at Trent-ham on Good Friday, it is anticipated and hoped that there will be. many guests at the club. Complete arrangements are now made for the football match on Saturday, Ladies v. Soldiers in hobble skirts. There will be a -procession from the railway station, where the ladies' team will go to meet the soldiers, and two bands (the Trentham and. the N.Z.N.A.) will be in attendance. The ladies' costume will, be a white blouse, black skirt, tam-o'-shanter cap, and fern-leaf badge. The hobble, skirts are to be provided by the N.Z.N.A. Ladies' Guild. Arrangements have been made for a ■ luncheon at the association's rooms for members who are in offices, etc., and will not be able to go home for a meal, as the match begins [ early. There will be other attractions !at the ground as well as the football match. The. classes formed for musketry, shooting, and signalling in connection with the Women's National Reserve are all going on with energy and success. Large numbers have joined each class, |so that the musketry class, under Mr. Rowland, of Miramar, meets on Wednesday afternoons and Thursday evenings. This class will go on to learn shooting after passing a test examination. Signalling is efficiently taught on WedneaJ day evenings by Miss Easton, and her class is making good progress. Mrs. Sommerville is the officer in charge on these occasions. The annual conference of the New Zealand Women Teachers' Association will begin to-morrow afternoon, and will be followed by a dinner at Miss Tenball's Rooms. !■ Mrs. Fossotte aaid Mrs. Bennett will be in charge of the Triangle Patriotic Depot on Thursday, and Mrs. Varney on Saturday. In spite of the bad weather last week, the ladies ik charge did very well, and wish to thank all contributors. Gifts of fancy work or children's clothes are very acceptable. j A meeting took place last night at the Town Hall of members of the Red Cross Societies' Committees, when it was arranged that a street collection in aid of the funds should take place on Empire Day, 24th May! It had ,been suggested that it should take place on Anzac Day, hut the time wag too short to organise it properly. . A meeting will be held •sarly in May to make further arrangements/ A number of members of the Women's National Reserve had an interview with t.lie Minister for Internal Affairs yesterday, representing to him that the feeling <if the women of New Zealand was that 'I war census ol women should be taken for the' purpose of ascertaining the mun!>Br available to take up the worlt of men called upon to serve as soldiers, h, was agreed that the executive of the VV.IST.R. should prepare a scheme of .'.cgistration for the' consideration of- the Minister. Ono of tho objects' of the organisation will be__to provide efficient lady stenographers,'rclerks, chop assistants, etc. The -work of compiling the register will bo done by the women themselves. A test of efficiency in the various branches will be required, and applicants for office work -will be required to pass an examination. ' The examiner will probably be an officer of the Education Department. The work will not bo honorary, but the 6calo of pay will be prepared, based on current rates, by the National Reserve. Mr. and Mrs. JR. Darroch have gone to Carterton,for the holidays. Mrs. H. S. Hadiield leaves to-morrow for her home at Lindale, Paraparaumu. Mrs. A. E. Kcrnot and her two daughters are leaving for Sydney by the Manuka this week. Mrs. J. Hoggard has returned from a. long visit ..to Nelson, Blenheim, and Mangaweka. Mr. and Mrs..T. D. Hall and family (Christchurch) nave left for England, via America, where one .of the sons is to take up Lord Liverpool's Navy cadetship. Mrs. Duncan Bauchop is leaving for England to join her husband, Lieutenant Bauchop (Engineers). Mr. and Mrs. T. Smith have left Wellington for a trip to Waitomo Caves and Auckland. Mrs. L. J. A. Fox, of Kelburn, has received intimation from Cordoba-, Argentina, that she is the sole beneficiary under the will of the late Alberto Rorlrigur, who died at Cordoba on 7th February. The estate is valued at £27,000. Mrs. Fox will leave- New Zealand early in June for Argentina, and will be a,way for about three months. As a result of a Red Cross tea given on 29th March last by the lady croquet players attached to the Hataitai Bowling Club, the sum -of £20 was to-day handed to the St. John Ambulance section of the Red Cross. The result is a creditable one, as the players are few, consisting practically of the committee controlling the affair. The ladies interested were Mesdames Pilkington, Claridge (2). Ham, Pritchard, Penney. Dowling, Shorney, M'Whannell, and Halliday (secretary and treasurer). At the Church of England Hall, Trentham, an enjoyable concert was held on Tuesday night, organised by Mrs. S. Hempton. Mostly all items were encored twice. The £ performers .were:—Mrs. Hempton, Miss Wilson, Sergt. Jack Nuttal (songs), Miss George and Mr. Perry (recitations), and a string quartette by the Misses Turner (2), and Cooze (2). "Queen Bee" is very optimistic about the house training of women which is going on now. She says : "Some very pleasant surprises are likely to greet Johnny when he comes marching home, again, hurrah ! His homo is going to be better managed, and more -comfortable ; his meals beautifully cooked, and a clever housekeeper will be found in the place of many a careless and slovenly one. This is because many of the wives and mothers and sisters of men 'doing their bit' at the front are earnestly setting to work to do their bit here by improving the whole atmosphere of the homes their men are .fighting to defend. Eight centres for soldiers' wives and mothers are in full working order in and around Sydney now. Besides being n meeting-place for the women and children, they afford opportunities for those wlio wish to do so to learn fewiiig, knitting, hygiene, cooking, and other domestic arts." The number of marriages contracted since the war by women of enemy nationality with Frenchmen has so increased that the French Government has decided to iak P/irliamer.t to pns? a Bill the result of which will be

, to deprive all such foreign brides of the benefits of the present. French marriage laws. The latter confer on the woman marrying a Frenchman the status and all the privileges of a citizen of French nationality, including exemption from any measures which might otherwise be taken against her as an undesirable alien. Extraordinary examples of the more than suspicious motives of these mixed marriages are given by M. Lereon, the deputy commissioned to report upon the proposed new legislation. A German woman of means married in August last a Paris bootblack, on whom she settled a small annuity as tli3 price of his name and the immunity it best-owed on her. The couple never lived together, and the sole object of the marriage was to enable the German woman to retain possession of her property in France and to live unmolested in Paris. Another case quoted is even more significant. The woman, a rich Hungarian artist, went to Switzerland at the beginning of the war, found an old French stone cutter, aged 74 years, and married him. The man was without education and penniless. The bride, who lived in Paris before the war, contracted the marriage simply in order to return to the French capital and exercise her profession of espionage. Australian soldiers are becoming rarer in the streets of London, says s London correspondent- of the Australasian. They are being shipped off to all sorts of places, and, as one put it, " I was given a sheepskin coat, which I thought meant Flanders, arid a cork helmet, so then I guessed Mesopotamia, a linen suit, so then I was sure it was Egypt, and double wool underwear, so then I guessed the Bill, my brother, who is in the R.F.A., says he got the same sort of things served out to him last July, and he is still at Shoeburyness." An Australian who attended the Women's Pea-ce Congress at the PanamaExposition sa-ys it was one of the most amusing affairs she was ever at in her life. A Mis. May Sewall, who seemed to have charge of the proceedings, said there were four things she most wanted for the conference; they were a banner, a symbol, a hymn and prayer, and then taking the Lord's Prayer for her lastnamed requirement, she embellished it with 'additions of her own. The con--ference was supplied with a flag, so that the banner was forthcoming, and it was given, so a delegate said, by the Wi-Mo-Daw-Sis of the world. This magnificent title for a body of women is made up of the first severak letters of the worfls wives, mothers, daughters, sisters, and an irreverent person who got up to make a speech, suggesting that the Hus-Fa-So-P.ro of the world should write ahymn for the society, was taken serious, ly, and thanked for her suggestion. The majority of Australians who travel through America find the sentiment there almost entirely pro-Ally, and though there are many peace societies they do not appear to carry much weight. Letters to England from 4merica have in nearly all cases been opened by the censor, and in this way gain an added value to many people, who feel exceedingly important at seeing their unimportant and innocent correspondence fall under the suspicion of the military authorities.