MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1929, Page 9

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

ITEMS OE INTEREST

(Noles by 1

Marjorie)

ENGLISHWOMEN’S IDEALS. GOOD WORK AS PIONEERS. .. “Look at what Englishwomen do as pioneers,” remarked Henry Ford, in the course of a recent interview on women’s destiny in the industrial age. “Young women and old, from the best homes, go out and colonise the far places of the Emire, right by the side of their men, sharing the dangers and privations of a pioneering life with a smile on their lips. “If the English are the only people Who cap. colonise and pioneer, it is because their wives go with them,” he added. “They are brighter and more spry than most women, their idea of life is to be a helpmate, not only that, but real partners of their men, to build a life with them, i I know this from my own experience, because my wife was one of ten children of an Englishwoman who came to America when she was only 15 years old. We have' been partners for 41 years. , “If women are wise, they are a coming power—but a power in the home, not in industry. Homes are the motives of men. Industry exists only because in the end it ministers to the home. Women are a diminishing, rather than an oncoming force in industry. Women ahd men are not competitors, but complements. ,1 get along better, and always have! done, by working together with Mrs Ford. We always work together in everything we do —we walked together, read together, played together, made the most of our opportunities together. “I believe a woman’s good thoughts and a man’s good thoughts, united together, are a great power—a new and special kind of power—in the world. We don’t 'quite realise that all thoughts are independent entities. They are substantial, these thoughts of ours. They are our way back to religion, in which lies actual power to ennoble people. We are now on our way black to a world that we knew when humanity was young.” , i

AGE FOR MARRYING. In France the man must be eighteen and the woman sixteen in order to marry. In Germany the man must be at least eighteen years of age. In Portugal a boy of fourteen is consid ered marriageable and a girl of twelve. In G reece the man must have seen at least fourteen summers and the woman twelve. In Spain the intended husband must have passed his fourteenth year and the woman her twelfth. In Austria a man and a woman are supposed to be capable of conducting a home of their own from the age of fourteen. In Turkey any youth and maiden who can walk properly and can understand the neces sary religious services are allowed to be united for life.

BRIDEGROOM’S FATE. DEATH ON EVE OF MARRIAGE: LONDON, October 5. On the eve of his marriage to the girl to whom he had been engaged for two years, Edward Cornelius Adams, aged - 28, a bricklayer, was burnt to death in a fire at Nettlestead, a village near Maidstone, on Friday night. Adams was to have been married yesterday to Miss Eva Symmonds, aged 23, of Church ‘Street, Teston, a neighbouring village. He went to a chicken hut, a small wooden erection on an allotment near his home to attend to the chickens. Fire broke out in the hut, and apparently Adams was trapped. Men who attempted to put the fire out did not at first know there was anyone : inside, and it was not until the flames were quelled that they made the discovery. It is thought that the tragedy was caused by a lighted match or cigarette being thrown near a can of petrol kept in the chicken house away from the cottage for safety. A verdict of “accidental death” was returned at the inquest yesterday.

TRUNKS FULL OF JEWELS. FATHER’S HOARD DISCOVERED. Five hundred thousand yen and seventy trunks full of jewels and antiques were the treasures for an heiress, in a veritable fairy tale, the first scene of which was enacted at the old guard’s ■ quarters near the great Seidaimon Gate of anciet Seoul, the Korean capital. i ■ ‘ ' The next scene prdbably will be in some lawyer’s office m London, where the long-lost fortune will be placed in the hands of Miss Mary Brown, of that city. Her father, Sir John MacLeavy Brown, was a Customs commissioner to the old Korean Government. Th'e treasures were packed, labelled and hidden 'in an underground vault in the old guard’s quarters when he left Korea upon Japan’s annexation of the Peninsula.

In the course of recent repairs to the old building the trunks were found by Japanese officials, who have traced the tale back to the beginning. As Sir John is dead, the Seventy trunks of treasures and the 500,000 yen which had accumulated from interest on the original 300,000 yen deposit made by him at the Seoul branch of the Daichi Ginko will be sent to his daughter. > .RIGHTS OF A FIANCE. A PECULIAR LAWSUIT. ‘ A peculiar lawsuit, in Budapest, has raised the question of what a man may or may not demand of his future bride. . A young man of the upper classes has sued his former fiancee —a young lady well-known in Budapest society —for the return of a valuable engagement ring. Shortly after the engagement was made public the young man heard rumours that his fiancee was suffering from serious heart trouble, and, repeating the rumour <to her, he begged her to consult a doctor. This, the young lady refused to do. As the young man’s friends continued to insist that she was organically unhealthy, he decided to trick her into undergoing a medical examination.

- The fiancee had a small scar on her neck, and the young man persuaded her to visit a surgeon—whom, he had previously instructed to examine her —yith the object of having - the scar obliterated. When the girl discovered, however, that the removal of the scar must be preceded by an examination of the heart, lungs, etc., she refused to continue the matter. After this the young man considered himself justified in breaking off the engagement.

LOVERS MADE HAPPY. There was an unusual incident at the Hove Police-Court when a girl of 19 years applied for permission to marry her 19-year-old sweetheart as her father would not give his consent. Both her mother and the young man were quite agreeable to the marriage, said the girl, but her father refused to even discuss it with her. The boy had been brought up in a monastery and was earning from £5 to £7 per week. Asked to give his reasons for objecting, the girl’s father replied that he did not actually object, but he would like to see more of the lad. He had only known him for about five months. His daughter and the young man went out together every evening. The Mayor (Captain A. B. Wales): Well, that’s nothing; I used to do that. Sitting with the Mayor was another magistrate, Lady Rawson, and after a short ’ consultation the Mayor said they could see no reason why they should not give their consent.

LOST WIFE RETURNS. TOOK HOLIDAY ON OWN. The real reason why Mrs May France, the beautiful Brighton woman, disappeared, was revealed not long after her discovery. She vanished after landing at Liverpool from America, recently, and, on her return to Brighton, refused to say more than that she been spending a holiday with friends in Paris. Mrs France’s story is. that of an honest woman’s revolt against the monotony of housework. It is the story of a woman who defied convention and took a holiday away from home and husband. Mr and Mrs France were alone in their flat above their antique shop in The Lanes. Mrs France looked the happiest woman alive. On the other side of the fireplace, Mr France was happy, too —a very different man from the distracted husband who, a week previously, sought everyone’s aid in tracing his wife. Mrs France smiled slowly while she stated the real meaning of her adventure.

“I did what every woman who is honest with herself would like to do,” she said. “I just took a holiday. “I was ‘married when I was very young,” she went on. “I had been married 18 years and I had never been away, alone before. I had always been so well looked after that I felt I would like to look after myself for a while. * “You men have changes every day, you know. You can go out at night with friends and sit at the club. You can go away alone for a week-end. You can manage your own lives. But it is different for a woman. Someone must get the dinner ready. Someone must see that the house runs smoothly. And, after all, housework does become monotonous. “Ask any woman, and she will tell you the same. She would like a holiday, if it was only a week every year, away from all the familiar surroundings. I .never thought my husband would get anxious. I was ready to come back and tell him all about it when I heard of the fuss that was going on. “Ahd all because a woman takes a holiday on her own,” she concluded, with much disgust, j Mr France stirred from his chair and spoke for the first time.' “Aren’t women funny?” he asked. “She realises that it was rather indiscreet to go off like that,” he said. “She blames me for worrying, but what else could a husband do? “Still,” he added slyly, “we are happy now, and it has given us the chance of a second honeymoon.”