ABOUT WOMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 10339, 12 June 1897, Page 4 (Supplement)

ABOUT WOMEN.

ftf&Skti fIHB. yon ~fefo **» Wanganui disiPTOllHwejrJpta 4»d of theHdwke's ih I^@^ ni NllPs? em^e journalists in New women gain Aheir HveUhoodtila^posftors. s^*B "MP" 1 M -A. at Edinnave been heading A women is announced. In America we hear that Miss Wenlook, queen of whist-players, holds olasses for instruction in thegame in many cities of the United States. Her example has, of course, i«m feUowsLby man*, other Jadies, who are at this moment earning the wherewithal to pay for the autumn hofidays by teaching whist and other games of skill at large hotels at seme ef-'the resorts, where swum is apt to olaim many yiotims, espexjia%;fliiring alffet season. A very sad ending to a wedding occurred at Udine, in Italy. 4 lady named Teresa del Bianco and Signor Nicodemo were in the aot of being married in the presence of numerous friends, and the service had proceeded to the point where the priest asks " Wilt thon have this man to be thy wedded husband V when the bride, having whispered *' I will," fell down and expired. Apoplexy was the cause of death. Mrs Eves, a widow woman of eighty-three, who died in Wellington the other day, says the ' Post,' was the sole survivor of fifty couples who were present at her wedding breakfast. She came to the colony in the ship Indian Queen forty years ago. She was an enthusiastic Royalist, and took keen interest in the approaohing record reign celebrations. She .saw Queen Victoria crowned, married, and the wedding breakfast set. For many years she kept a piece of Her Majesty's cake. She had a large collection of historical records. A romance in London West End has been provided by the marriage, without their parents' knowledge, of Mr Granville Knox and the Hon. Harriet Agar Ellis, daughter of Viscount Clifden. The enterprising lovers had been married for a couple of days before the relatives were let into the seoret. The parents' objections were on religious grounds. Mr Knox is a Protestant, Miss Ellis had remained in the Roman Catholic faith of her mother.

The memory of Frances E. Willard will be perpetuated in the North-western University by a life-siz: bust of white marble, which is to be presented to that institution during commemoration week. The bust will be given to the college, which is Miss Willard's Alma Mater, by J. C. Shafer, a wealthy resident of Evanstor. It will be the work of Lorado Taft. The gift to the University, of which Miss Willard was the first woman to be appointed dean, will be accompanied by a memorial demonstration. A school of marriage has been established at New York. Here young lady aspirants for matrimonial honors are taught how to sew, wash, mend, etc., "by teachers who have been successful and happy mothers." The girls are also taught how to choose husbands, and what to say to them when they come home late from the office, with many other valuable hints. A first vote of £640 has been granted by the French Government towards the expenses incurred by the admission of women to the Eoole Des Beaux Arts. Women between the ages of fifteen and thirty will in future be admitted to study on the certificate of a known artist as to their capabilities. When the doors of the Paris institutions were thrown open to the women in April sixty female students enrolled themselves.

The Queen of the Belgians is really a most accomplished musician ; not only "a skilful performer, but also a composer of no ordinary merit.

The Queen in her long life has travelled very little abroad. ' She has never been in Russia, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Spain, or Greece. She has never yet set eyes on any of her colonies, or upon any part of Asia, Africa, or America. When the Queen of Italy enters a store to do some shopping the doors are closed and the public excluded till she has left. Vegetarian dress is quite the newest craze. The members of the Women's Vegetarian Union of London have now decided that animal clothing is as wrong as animal food. No longer must the kid or calf be permitted to clothe our hands, or the ox and horse to clothe our feet. As for the osprey and the sealskin jacket, they were condemned long ago ; but now all feathers and all skin are wrong. We are to have vegetable gloves, vegetable boots, and even vegetable notepaper ! The cow ought no longer to be allowed to give us of her milk, and butter made of nuts is to supplant the sinful product of the churn. The pity of it all is that we cannot make ourselves vegetables. On the outbreak of hostilities between Greece and Turkey seven English nurses went to the scene of action under tbe auspices of the Red Cross Society. They included Mrs Ormiston Chant, Miss Lilian Lees (of the Lewisham Infirmary), Miss Emma Curtise (of the London Association of Nurseß), Miss Lavinia Fawkes, Miss Charlotte Flanagan, Miss Beatrix Warmer (all registered nurses). i According to the 'New York Journal' a number of serious-minded American ladies recently met and drew up a constitution and by-laws pledging women not to marry any man in whose family there was a-predis-position to consumption or to any transmissible disease.

According to the trade papers of the bootmakers, the smallest sizes of ladies' boots and shoes are becoming less and less asked for. The eager participation in outdoor sports and recreations which has beoome a part of the daily routine of the modern woman's life doubtless accounts in a large measure for this partial disappearance of very small shoes. Nothing but easy well-fitting footgear is now possible in the eight-mile walk, on the golf links, or the bioyole,

The experience of a London prison chaplain, who has deduced his opinions from as many as 100,000 women of whose histories he has kept a faithful record, is that in the first instance women have less evil instincts than men; but when once they have learned criminal methods from the males they are often more expert than their teaohers. That women are responsible for many crimes en the part of men there cm be no doubt; but in nine cases out of ten they are not wilfully gnilty. They marry young, without any training whatever; they can neither clean nor cook, nor are they expert with their needle; and they have no idea whatever of shopping and making money go as far as it ought. The consequences are that the home ia miserable, and that the man goes to his work suffering from the effects of ill-cooked meals, and is driven to the public-house for laok of comfort at home. Three-fourths of the orimes committed are due to drink; this is the first step on the downward progress. When the man married it is more than probable he meant to treat his wife kindly and was honestly fond ot her. The Senate of the Cambridge University have, by an overwhelming majority, refused to agree to the proposal to allow women to take degrees. Professor Case, writing in the London ' Times' on this subject, states the position as follows:—" The logical line whioh the universities have hitherto.drawn between what they can and what they cannot do for women is the only logioal line they can draw. They afford a standard of education by examining women. On the whole, they hereby avoid two dangers, the one the danger of destroying the specialties of female education, the other the danger of contracting a permanent responsibility to women. If they went beyond this limit by giving titles of degrees, the official relation of the universities towards the education of women would enter on a new and irrevocable movement on an inclined plane, male and female education would gradually gravitate to each other till they coincided, and the classical foundations of male education would practically disappear, because "the better naif" of the universities would not want to learn Latin and Greek. At last to keep women ontof real degrees would noc be worth a contest. Henoe ten yean ago, when this same question of women's degrees agitated Cambridge, the Council of the SenatC-very rightly and logically drew the-' line at the admission of women to examinations. V, LADY JEUNE ON MARIE CORELLI. Lady Jeune replies to some statements by Marie Corelli concerning the modern marriage "market. Her ladyship thinks the author 6f 'The Sorrows' of Satan' is mistaken In drawing the picture she has done. The same reproaches have always been

heaped on aooiety which Marie Oortlli 1 makes; mother* have always been accused of sacrificing their daughters for money, for the sake of the jewels and jsttlementa of a rich husband; and tie ory of the "slave market" hj as old *■ the world itself. Bat, asks liady Jeune, is it true? There may be oiraumstanesa sorroanding some marriages which lead color 1 to the suggestion that girls have sold themselves for money, but snoh oases, Lady Jenne holds, are exceptions. In the same way Lady Jeune objects to and protests most strongly against Marie Corelli's statement that girls are " brought ont" in the " season" to be sold as " any unhappy Armenian girl "—a statement, Lidy Jeuue asserts, "as false as it is ridiculous.' ? Does Marie Corelli really believe that the bright, happy, pretty girls we Bee in London ballropma. ajl go there for the purpose of exhibiting their charms to the richest and most desirable suitor ? Does she think that every girl starts in life with the avowed and opfln intention of making the best of her looks for snoh a purpose? We say that such an idea is monstrous; absolutely false of the girls, and equally untrue and unjust' as regards their mothers. If girls are watohed in ballrooms or at any other of their amusements, Lady Jeune can see no traoe of the demoralising influences whish Marie Corelli says are sapping all that is pure and sweet in their nature. If such an acousation were true, it certainly, Lady Jeune thinks, needs more confirmation than the facta Marie Corelli brings forward to prove it, and her ladyship's experience leads her to quite a different conclusion. A DEVOTED WIFE. The story of Madame Dreyfns's efforts to save her ill-fated husband is as full of romance as it is of pathos, and is almost incredible in these prosaic days. Captain Dreyfus, as everyone knows, was found guilty of selling information about French fortifications to the German Government, and sentenced to lifelong imprisonment upon an island off Freuoh Guiana. His wife, who is a woman of great intellectual ability and striking beauty, has steadfastly believed in his innocence, and after the verdict she demanded a new trial, whioh was refused by the Government. She then endeavored to get the case taken np by various political persons, and, finding her efforts hopeless, succeeded in bringing it before the German Emperor, with whom she obtained an audience. Her tears and unalterable faith in her husband impressed the Empsror, and he promised to give the affair his personal attention. She subsequently succeeded in interviewing the Emperor of Austria and the Czir, and lastly appealed to the Pope, who, though he would not see her, undertook to read over any evidence she chose to Bubmit. It is now believed that, as a resul' of Madame Dreyfns's devoted efforts, there will be a new trial—probably at some military station in Algiers. Captain Dreyfus is, however, slowly dying on the barren island to which he has been sent, the unhealthiness of which is so notorious that even goats cannot live there. His hair has become white and his beard grey, although he is a young man, and used to he a very popular and cultivated member of society.