WOMAN’S WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 18159, 27 December 1922, Page 3

WOMAN’S WORLD

[Bx VIVA.]

BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC. (Reproduced by request.) [Written by Julia Ward Howe to encourage the soldiers of the North in fighting far tJio abolition of slavery in the American North v. South War. It was sung at the unveiling of Lincoln s statue to the tune of ‘John. Brown's Body.’] Mine eyes have seen the 'glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage wheae the grapes of wrath are stored; ■He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on! I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps; They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps; I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps; His day is marching on! He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat ; Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on! In the beauty of the lilies Christ was i ■born, across tho_ sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let ns die to make men free, While God is marching on! BUCK UP. [Copyright, 1921, by Edgar A. Guest.] Buck up when you’re discouraged. Buck up when things go wrong, Buck up and face the battle, Care doesn’t last for long. What though disaster taunts you. And hope seems lost in doubt ? Buck up and fare your problem, You still can work it out. Buck up and fight still harder, To-morrow waits for you; Until the game is ended . There’s something you can do. And even after failure, If but your faith be stout, And you remain undaunted, You still can work it out. Buck up when you are tiring, Your foes are tiring, too ; Buck up, the fight’s not hopeless Until they’ve conquered you. Buck up, though bruised and battered, Still battle, tooth and nail; Though flesh and muscle falter, Don’t let your spirit fail. Buck up, the will within you Unconquered must remain. For man must face his duty In spite of grief or pain. There’s still a chance to conquer However dark the view, Unless you let misfortune Destroy your spirit, too. “ A MAN'S JOB.” [By Elizabeth Austin.] I am getting so tired of hearing women abused for one thing .and another that I am glad of a chance to hit baric. Among other things, we are accused of taking men’s jobs from them. We are told we have no right to be in banks or offices or the Civil Service. Those, so our severe masculine critics tell us, aro “men’s jobs.” Very wall, then, why do men take women’s jobs? They certainly do. A few days ago I saw an interesting spectacle. A young man was standing inside a shop window unfolding . . . well, he was unfolding ladies’ lingerie. The sight of him made one feel quite embarrassed ; hut he didn’t seem to mind the glaring publicity at all. If ever there was a woman’s job, isn’t that it? I suppose I shall bo told that “window dressing” is a skilled job and therefore suitable for men. That’s no answer. There are plenty of women who can do skilled jobs, and I think it would be far more suitable for women to art as window dressers when it is a matter of feminine underwear and fripperies. And it never seems to me that selling linen buttons and yards of tape is a man’s job; yet often enough one sees them doing it—at any rate, in little suburban shops. I haven’t the least objection to a man’s doing anything be. Likes lor a living. As far as I’m concerned, ho can be a. housemaid or a nurse girl—that’s his business. But I do think it unfair to raise all this outcry about women taking “men’s jobs” while so many men are doing what are obviously “ women’s jobs.” SPARKLING EYES DIET. “ Women are eating carrots to make themselves beautiful. They have discovered that the carrot, once thought to be a poisonous weed, is a better aid to beauty than any preparation to bo bought at a drug store.” So said Miss Anna Hallam, the American psychologist, to an audience of women at the Cantral Hall, Westminster. Dr H. Valentine Knaggs, a noted London dietist. confirmed the value of the carrot as a beauty-producer. “Women who eat raw carrots must necessarily become beautiful,” said Dr Knaggs to a Press representative. “ Carrots contain valuable mineral wealth that in the form of vitamincs give additional magnetism to the personality. The carrots should be taken grated with a salad at breakfast time. I have seen innumerable women grow beautiful on a raw vegetable diet. Their skins grow soft, their eyes sparkle, and they hold themselves with upright carriage. Even their walk improves.” FURNITURE ARRANGEMENTS. THE BEST POSITION. There should be a winter arrangement and a summer arrangement of furniture in the sitting room. In summer the window is the point round which the easy chairs are grouped. In winter the fireplace is the chief place of interest. Comfort as well as decoration should guide a woman in the arrangement of her rooms. She should remember tho tastes of her family, says a writer in the ‘Daily Mail.’ Some rooms look very picturesque, but there is no comfort in them. The lamps are in an inconvenient place for reading or for working, and the chairs are so placed that an intimate conversation between two people is impossible. Many women do not know where to put a, writing table. In many households it is placed in a dark comer, where neither by day nor by night can the person who sits before it see to write. The piano is another piece of furniture which needs placing with a view ,to use as well as decoration. It should be out of a draught, and it should be in such_ a position that the pianist and! singer can feel themselves comfortably aloot from their audience. The tea table also needs careful placing. It must not be ah obstruction. The way should be dear for the maid to roach it from the door and for the hostess to attend to her guests. The arrangement of bedroom furniture calls for no less care than that of a sitting room. The bed should not face the light, but be placed so that one side is towards the window. There should be a lamp beside or over the bed, and plenty of hanging accommodation and generous drawer space in the room.

Reports of social functions will be welcomed for this column. “ Viva ” will also answer all reasonable questions relating to the home, cookery, domestic economy, and any topic of Interest to her sex. But each letter or report must bear the writer’s name and address as a guarantee of genuineness, and questions that do not permit of a public reply cannot be answered. Questions should be concisely put and the writer’s uom do plume clearly written.

THE MODERN TYPIST. Mr Arnold Bennett recently let himself go to the extent of a full-length novel on the subject of a typist of deadly fascination called “.Lilian,” writes Caroline Carr in a London paper. She mesmerised her infatuated employer to the extent of being taken by Inrn to the Riviera, being married by him on his death-bed, and being left the business in which she had formerly been employed. In fact, Mr Grig took Lilian out and about, and Lilian took Mr Grig in. Doris, the heroine of ‘ Glamor,’ produced at the Apollo Theatre, is another type of typist charmingly played by Alias Frances Carson, the “ more sinned against than sinning,” who fascinates, in spite of herself, her employer and his eon. Doris was no designing minx, but a young woman of culture, who loved Rupert Brooke and flowers and Joseph Conrad in equal proportions. So much for the shorthand-typist of fiction, bearing about as much resemblance to the shorthand-typist of fact as the revue politician bears to the gentlemen in the wilderness. Shorthand-typists in fiction rarely have mothers. If they had, the chances of their having illicit liaisons with their employers would be few indeed. The mother of the girl in the office is just like any other girl’s maternal parent. She keeps a strict eye on her comings and goings, her earnings and her spendings, her presents and her admirers. Her ambitions would make havoc of fiction, but make happiness in fact. Sho schemes, as all good mothers scheme, for her girl’s marriage to a sensible, hard-working young man of her own class. It is surprising how many wives of men who employ women have a morbid jealousy of their husband’s shorthandtypist or secretary. Being under no necessity to work for their existence themselves, they love to picture the girl who must do so as an office vampire—a young person in transparent blouses and silk stockings, whose chief duties consist in making tea and taking telephone calls for the susceptible male whom she serves. There is nothing, in fact, the average employer loathes so much as the frivolous feminine employee. There are few men, indeed, whom a red mop of hair in the office would compensate for bad spelling and grammar in the letters. BORROWED PLUMES. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Birds need not be at all alarmed over the feather fashions which will prevail quite shortly (says the Sydney ‘Sun’), The trove is ail from friend ostrich, or the barnyard denizen, though by the time that craftsmen have finished with the raw material it is difficult to believe that some of the feather aids ever graced either of the birds mentioned. It is to be a feathered season. Feathers everywhere, trailing down evening gowns or in the way of a garland of pink fronds on a frock of pink beaut© satin, or trimming various makes and shapes or lints. The coque feather—a georgeously tinted thing of green, or black and bronze, is really the newest of all. It will trim evening cloaks as a deep fringe, and a high col'/', and a coque cape, fastened with/ huge jade and ivory clasp, is a notion that has found favor with the hypercr'/ical Parisicnne. Regarding featliers for millinery, however, the ostrich in his native state is merely the general provider .for a glorious campaign of camouflage. The glycerine feather, the drenched frond, are only two of many ways of serving up plumage. Whole hats are now showing for early autumn wear, with suits and smart hats, that are a mass of feather fronds and no more. Plaited fronds 'used like straw are a novelty that clever (hat-builders have turned to account, and clipped- feathers also applied to hat use, suggest short fringe, and make delightful little hats of leal chic. The big hat which will be seen in moderation during autumn vviheu trimmed with striped ostrich, expresses a new vogue, and there arc literally limitless ways of using plumage. Barnyard fcathories, however, belong to hats only. A bouse or two did attempt to launch this stiff feather vogue as an embroidery on cloth for suits, and on a fabric looking like a piece cut from a royal cloak of a Maori king, as a substitute for fur on a tailleur. But it was merely a try-out. The wreaths and bunches of pompoms, made from the plumage of flying birds, serve beet their purpose as millinery aids, and in the new tones are quite good. A BEAUTY PROBLEM. I was horrified some time back (writes “M.F.” in a Horae paper), to meet a friend—once a very beautiful girl—with several disfiguring scars on her face, which she told mo had been produced by illadvised visits to an incompetent practitioner of electrolysis for the removal of superfluous hair. She now goes about as a land of object lesson to warn fellowsufferers of the danger and iniquitousness of this form of treatment. One can, of course, sympathise with the vehemence of her condemnation of the whole breed of electro-therapists without agreeing that her own experience need necessarily bo repeated in any other case. There can bo no question hut that electrolysis is the most certain and most radical treatment; but the technique is delicate and difficult, and should be undertaken only at the hands of one who has studied it sufficiently to obtain the necessary results whilst avoiding the dangers with which its unskilled application is fraught. The trouble with the lay public is that they never have any guarantee that tho practitioner to whom they are going is just of the kind on whom every reliance can be placed. If you contemplate this form of treatment you cannot do better than to consult your own family doctor as to the practitioner in whoso hands you should place yourself. If he does not know, point out to him that he must find out. It is his business to inform himself on such questions as these. Still, I do not think, if the case is a mild one. that the expense, tediousness, or painfulness of electrolytic treatment is necessary or advisable. A great improvement in the appearance can be obtained by so bleaching tho hairs that they become practically invisible. To do this first carefully wash the part with ether. This has the effect of removing any excess of fat. Then apply a little hydrogen peroxide, which is probably the best and most hornless bleaching agent known to modem science. The whole procedure can bo carried out by means of a little cotton wool. A piece of this is first dipped in the" ether and rubbed well on, and then another piece is used for the ■hydrogen peroxide. Certain tilings must be carefully avoided. Remember that greasy applications to the skin encourage the growth of hair. And the prevalent amongst certain people of plucking out the bains simply has the effect of making them grow more strongly and more thickly than before. I am occasionally consulted about tho use of depilatory pastes. Of course, I would say that as a general rule they are best left alone. Whatever benefit they produce is temporary, and sometimes they act as irritants actually encouraging instead of retarding the further growth of topic.