MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 September 1940, Page 9

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

ITEMS OF INTEREST

FEW WOMEN WALK WELL.

DISTINCTION AND DIGNITY. There is such distinction and dignity in a good carriage and correct posture. How many mature women walk well? The secret of walking gracefully and having good carriage lies in posture and balance, states the “Sydney Morning Herald.” If you have been neglectful—just allowed yourself to “clump” along—make up your mind now, this minute, that you are going to improve. You have heard of the old trick of tossing a' pack of playing cards high in the air, then stooping to pick them up, every last one! This limbers your entire body. Your knees will creak, you will fall breathless in a chair, if you have been just sitting about or walking in a sloppy fashion. Get the habit of taking a daily walk. List the things you need and walk to the shops. Think of how you are balancing. Walk, don’t shuffle. Keep time to a little tune. Soon it will become natural to walk with rhythm! To improve your carriage takes a little effort and real determination, but you can do it! It will take years off your age, your clothes will look, better, you will feel better. < GET OUT OF THE SLUMP. When you sag mentally you sag physically. Get out of the slump! Think about how you are to improve. You can get rid of that dowager’s hump, that fatty accumulation at the back of the neck. Shoulders up, chin up, bosom high. These words must be in your consciousness every minute. One very clever, mature woman whom I know sits at her desk many hours of the day. She suddenly realised she was letting herself go. Her shoulders were down, head drooping. She hung a mirror over her desk. When she seated herself she assumed correct posture. Every time she looked up she could see how she looked. She has improved wonderfuly, even her mental attitude. Think how you must look when stepping up on a bds. \ Practise stepping up. Right foot first, then the left foot. Always grasp the handle of the bus with your right hand. Don’t “back out” of a bus. Face the door, step out briskly with the right foot first. Improve your balance and your posture will improve almost immediately. Truly then it can be said, “She walks in beauty!”

BOU ILLABAISE.”

A STORY FROM PROVENCE.

It should have been a day of happiness, but old Mama Marins sat weeping, for to-day her son was returning from military service, and she had no good food to welcome him with. On her table lay a few onions, a little garlic, a loaf of bread, and that was all.

“Why are you crying?” asked a passing urchin, and when she told him, he scuttled off to the wharves where the fishermen were bringing in their catches. He returned to the old woman laden vpth a catfish, a whiting, a bass, a handful of mussels, and a small lobster. Mama Marins was grateful—but she was still a little doubtful. But she heated a little olive oil, added some garlic, and chopped onions, a little saffron and salt, and then the fish. Then she cooked them for half an hour, added some water, and cooked them again for ten minutes. She sniffed the good smell—but, she thought, what can I use for a garnish? There was only the bread. So she cut the bread into wafer-thin slices, toasted them brown, and placed them in a dish. Then she poured over them the broth in which the fish had been cooked, and placed the fish in another dish, said the Australia Hotel chef in telling the story. And it tasted as good as it smelt — and the smell was so good that by the time her son had arrived home, the neighbours were around her door, begging for a taste and spreading the news of her discovery through the village. Soon news of Bouillibaise, as the new dish was called, spread through all Provence, to Paris, and to the world. PRE-MARRtAGE CONTRACT Before accepting a marriage license a bride-to-be said firmly to the recorder of deeds, James Kilmer: “Please witness my fiance’s signature to this oath first,” states a Kansas City message. The oath read: I hereby promise I will not go out at night after we are married. I will call on women only when accompanied y my wife. I will not drink more than my wife allows, and I will let her be boss in every way.” The prospective bridegroom signed.

MIXED BABIES. FINGERPRINTS AS SOLUTION. A recent report from Queensland alleged that a mistake had been made last year between two newly-born babies, and that only after fifteen months had the doubt concerning their identity become so evident as to suggest a special inquiry (writes latros, M.D., in the “Sydney Morning Herald”). . One of the prettiest sights imaginable is that of a group of lambs gambolling together in the cool of a Spring evening while the ewes, their mothers, gaze on them fondly and admiringly. And when their play ceases, each moiSier quickly and unhesitatingly recognises her own offspring. Fifty years ago a well-known pastoralist used to delight in such a spectacle, and say that ewes were far better mothers than were women because but few women could readily and certainly recognise their babies. This may have been slanderous, but nowadays, when so many births occur in obstetric hospitals, and the mothers see so little of their babies till they leave, it is readily understandable that they do not know very much how to care for them or even how to recognise them. For it is the modern practice immediately after a baby’s birth to remove him to a nursery, a room apart from his mother’s ward. The utmost care is, of course, taken to attach to each baby a label bearing his mother’s name.and the date and hour of his birth. ’ These labels are nevei' removed from the baby except perhaps for a few minutes during the bath, and for those few minutes each label is kept close beside its own baby.

THE BLOOD TEST. Yet we know that accidents may occur in the best regulated families, and there is something to be said in this respect for the older fashion of keeping each baby in his mother’s bed or at least in a cot beside it. This practice may possibly be less hygienic, but it has the great advantage that the mother learns more quickly to know and to care for her own baby, and this undoubtedly increases her maternal love and helps the physical and mental development of the little one. If under the new system a doubt arises as to the motherhood of a particular baby, how can it be settled? If the reputed mother is uncertain, as she well may be with a baby whom she has scarcely'handled, it would require the wisdom of Solomon to decide. Fortunately, a blood test may help; help to suggest, but unfortunately rarely help to decide; for the blood tests used serve to divide the babies only into about four groups, and give no aid in distinguishing between two babies of the same blood group. If, however, it happens that two babies belong to different blood groups and of these only one could correspond with the blood group to which one mother belongs, and only the other to the blood group to. which the second mother belongs, a definite conclusion may be reached. It appears that such was fortunately the case in Queensland. If the fingerprints of every baby were recorded immediately on birth, it might be possible to decide definitely in every case, for the fingerprint is a label which cannot be detached or mixed, and every fingerprint not only belongs to a recognisable class, but has an absolute identity of its own. A comparison of fingerprints after fifteen months would show the identity of the older baby with the few minutes old baby of fifteen months earlier, but of course would not identify the mother unless the earlier fingerprints were recorded on the mother’s case notes. With this additional precaution, it seems that in the future the possibility of changelings would be remote. Some authorities, however, hold that a baby’s fingerprints are so indistinct and so difficult to record that it is wiser as well as easier to take the print of the whole of one palm or of one sole.

HARD ON HUSBANDS. WOMEN POOL IDEAS. In New York there is a remarkable institution known as the “How To Torture Your Husband Club,” states a London journal. One member’s husband sued for divorce, citing her as having smashed the windscreen of his car with a poker, broken the stem of his favourite pipe, crushed the toes of his patent leathei’ shoes with her high heels, locked him out of the house at night, placed the cat in his bed, shone the torch in his eyes as he tried to sleep, and complained bitterly that he did not help in the housework. The club meets, it is said, so that dissatisfied women can pool their ideas and make their husbands’ lives unbearable.

EGG ECONOMY.

There are many times in the kitchen when recipes call for the whites of eggs without the yolk, or vice versa. The unwanted part is often put away on a saucer or in a cup, for future use,-and. is later, found to be completely, useless. For true, kitchen economy the housewife will find these hint’s most useful. To obtain the whites of eggs prick a hole in the shell at the rounded, heavier end and allow the white to pour through, leaving the yolk enclosed in, the shell and rready for future use.. Seal the hole with a spot of the white and the yolk will remain fresh. - ; •. The second method is to break the egg as usual and to cover the yolk with cold water. This will keep .it quite fresh until the next day, and the water only, needs pouring off for the yolk to be ready for'use: