ABOUT WOMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 9911, 24 January 1896, Page 4

ABOUT WOMEN.

One of the most accomplished amateur sculptors of the time is the clever but eccentric Duohesse D'Uzes. She is now engaged on a colossal figure of the Virgin Mary. When finished it is to stand on a high cliff on one of the Duchesse's estates in the department of Aveyron, and it is calculated that it will be visible for a distance of at least thirty miles round. The figure is to be crowned, and the crown lighted with electricity. Mrs Dr NanseD, wife of the Arctic explorer, appears in an interview as follows : " I asked her if she had no desire to accompany her husband. She answered promptly : 'No, indeed ; that would be outside the sphere of a woman. That would not have been the proper thing for me. to do.' I ventured to mention that Mrs Peary accompanied her husband on an Arctic trip. * Yes,' she said, 'and so much the worse for the expedition.'" An artist who goes far afield in search of copy is Mr Mortimer Menpes. He has been sketching in Mexico. The women ,of the Zapatecos district he found to be extraordinarily beautiful, with a classical grace of carriage and firmness of figure. They have a picturesque sense of color in clothes, and one of the most interesting sights to be seen is the dyeing of the natural material by the sea-shore. The market at Tebuantepec, the chief town of tho district, is a wonderful scene. No man is allowed inside it, as all the trading is done by women; and the blending of colors as the crowd moved about suggested nothing so much as , a great pot-pourri of rose petals and violets thrown upon silver sand. Another American heiress has secured an English title, Lord Bennett (son and heir of the Earl of Tankerville) having married Miss Vanmater, who is reputed to be very wealthy. One of fie sensations at the M&rlboroughVanderbilt wedding was the police precautions taken to prevent the assassination of the bride ! A crank had been sending threatening letters to Miss Vandorbilt and her mother. He wanted money, of course. Mrs Vanderbiit decided to " take no chance of attempts being made to carry them out." When anyone mounted the front steps of the house, the Pinkerton men closed in at either side, and stood close to the caller until he had spoken with the liveried servant who answered the bell. And thus nobody was allowed to see the bride who could not be trusted or easily overpowered. Mrs Chattieltl Taylor, the wife of i Chicago's millionaire litterateur, possesses a tiara like that of the Priucess of Wa'es. The centre can be unhooked and hung as a diamond pendant from a gold chain, while the diamond band can be lengthened into bars with gold chain loops between for a diamond necklace ; or it can be taken apart for bracelets. So useful and beautiful in all ways is this ornament that one forgives its extravagance, which ate up a fortune of lo.OOOdol. THK GIRLS OF JERUSALEM. Of social life the girls of Jerusalem know nothing—absolutely nothing. They occasionally meet, a few together, and appear to enjoy each other's company a little. They talkabout their household work—which is really everything they know—and indulge in some light gossipy chat about friends, though their gossip is never of a harmful kind. In conversation they show some little animation and spirit, but, being iguorant and illiterate, they have no idea of grammatical form of expression. Occasionally cards, dominoes, and checkers are played, but the native girls have little | inclination for any pastime involving mental effort. Such things as dances, fetes, and fairs arc unknown to the girls of Jerusalem; occasionally they are taken on a family picnic to some olive orchard near their homes, where they pass part of the day. From these and all similar gatherings men are barred. There is absolutely-no commingling of the sexes. For a girl to appear at any assemblage where there are men would be regarded as audacious and shocking. No Jerusalem girl would do such a thing ; she would not dream of committing | so fatal a breach in the unwritten, though | well-defined, law governing the conduct of her sex. So strict is this law, or custom, of exclusion that under no circumstances would a girl attend the wedding of her brother to which were bidden guests outside the immediate family.—' Ladies' Home Journal.' UNHAPPY WIVES. At the present time (says a London paper) there exists a certain society of matrons, without definite organisation, rules, or habitation, which might, perhaps, for want of a better name, be called the Association of Unhappy Wives. Doubtless there have always been unhappy wives, even in antediluvian times, but to our age it has been reserved for them to band themselves together in bonds of mutual sympathy and in wholesale confidence, telling their sorrows not to one dear friend only, but to as many of the sisterhood as may meet together at one time and place. The Association has no written rules or lists of member?. Both are quite unnecessary. It is governed by delicate perceptions and finest tact, aud is recruited everywhere from the discontented, the unoccupied, the sentimental, and the misunderstood. They instinctively seem to find one another, but by some means unknown to the uninitiated. They meet, they indulge in invective against heinous husbands, and with speaking silence or with pathetic sighs they endure similar illusions to their own lords. There is real, though sad, pleasure in this martyrdom, and if only one of these wives who says she has much to suffer, but not much to tell about, culd but tell that her husband had actually beaten her she would be almost an object of envy amongt her sisterhood. Few of these sisters in suffering are very young, for a good many years .of marriage are necessary to so strip them of illusions that they are willing to confess it to have been a mistake. Some are clever women who have married commonplace men and find no sympathy; some are extravagant women who have married prudent men and have not enough to spend ; some are witty and sarcastic, and would criticise angels if they happened to meet them; others are fretful and whining, and, having mated with men of the same nature, they miss the perpetual sympathy for which they crave ; and many more are good women of the languishing order, who would have been happy if they had married men of a kindred spirit, but, as they have married those who are hard and coarse, have become members of this society. AXIOMS FOR GIRLS. Sir Walter Besant puts forward in the 'Queen' the following axioms for young ladies : 1. A girl cannot expect a man to be made on purpose for her. 2. A girl who cherishes an ideal man that is half a woman courts certain unhappiness. 3. Every feminine gift has its masculine counterpart, and they are never the same. Therefore a girl should look for unlikeness, not likeness. 4. The " friendship of chums" can never be arrived at by the man trying to become a woman, or by a woman to become a man.

5. The happiest marriages are those which develop and intensify the mental distinctions due to sex—not efface them.

6. In love and in marriage it is the ideal which awakens and which preserves affection.

7. Every girl should therefore find out what is the ideal wife as commonly accepted by men of worth, and should aim at that ideal.

8. A wife's duties depend largely on the income. If a girl marries on a small income she must not mind having to do some of the household work.

9. In essentials, though the ' New Woman' may be more literary and more artistic than her mother, she can certainly do no better for the good of herself and the general happiness of the world than follow in the footsteps of the Old—or Former— Woman.