MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 November 1923, Page 8

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

ANU huuo From time to t.me one hears of some new invention winch is intended to reduce labour in the home, but though each idea sounds attractive and feasible, only a very small percentage seem to reach the shops or are seen in actual use. The. birth of three new devices with manifest advantages was recently heralded, but whether they will be accessible to the ambitious hbuse.wife remains to be seen, states a writer in the “Manchester Guardian.” One of these is an electric steam iron, which allows selfmade steam to escape through small holes in the. base and thus automat:cally damps the garment being ironed,' far more effectually than the usual hand-sprinkling method. The amount of steam released can be regulated by a small valve screw, and the whole thing only weighs seven pounds. The handle is also tilled with water, so that a cool grip is ensured. Another device, perhaps rather zealous for ordinary domestic use, is said to be capable of peeling 151 b of vegetables in two minutes. It is worked by an electric motor and connected by a rubber pipe to the cold tap over the sink. The third idea is quite as sound, if less interesting, and consists of an adapter to lit any size saucepan to any size steamer, and thereby overcome a little, scullery problem which frequently arises.

Colour is becoming more and more a part of our daily life, and the days are gone when table glass was invariably white.. Blue, amber, green and ruby are finding their place on even the most formal dinner tables (says the “Westminster Gazette”). That they must be of high quality and good design goes without saying, for immediately they strike a decorative note they cease to be. merely drinking vessels and become part of the scheme of decoration, and there is nothing less attractive than badly designed glassware, especially if it directs attention to itself by being coloured. Old Bristol glass of a warm amber colour looks particularly well on the dining table. Most good china shops show beautiful designs in Venetian and cut glass. Another dinner table innovation is the use of quaint Japanese lacquer Bouillon bowls. These little wooden bowls, measuring about 5J> inches across, are of black lacquer lined with brilliant red. They are charming for use at luncheon or an informal dinner, and introduce a gay and unusual note. At first one believes that painted wood is hardly a suitable material for soup howls, but they are, nevertheless, impervious to heat, and food eaten from them will be quite untainted.

Just when some conservative Britons, who oppose modern tendencies in women, had found solace in the fact that riding astride was becoming unpopular among the fair sex, conies the announcement that the waitresses in a well-known West End restaurant were wearing white duck trousers to make their daily tasks easier. This particular restaurant also has an eye to beauty in choosing its waitresses, as lew beauty choruses can beat them in point of looks. But the mid-Victor-ians have other grievances as to the way in which they charge women are going the pace. For instance, Mrs George Duller recently won a motoring contest after doing more than sixty miles an hour, and later Airs (). S. Menzies won another rac ( . at ninety-one miles an hour. Two noted women’s crews set the old rowing hands to wondering because- of their prowess. While critics of the modern English girl say that her strenuous life will eventually have an appalling effect on the British race, her champions insist that be outdoor life is onlv natural, in view ol her hard lile during the war, and is bound to have a beiielicia! effect. One girl enthusiast says: “ft is better to go the sporting pace than to he preserved as a vegetable.”