MISCELLANEOUS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume 5, Issue 765, 4 April 1884, Page 3

MISCELLANEOUS.

The pet drug with actresses who would always be handsome is said to be arsenic ; it has driven morphia out of the market. When nightly labor lias worn the artiste oat, dimmed her ( eye and sallowed her complexion she flies to this mineral poison as a tonic. The effect is marvellous, and you may trust a woman to appreciate it. Her complexion, which was before sallow and yellow, becomes a clear beautiful white, and her frame, which was spare, if not skinny, suddenly becomes plump and voluptuous. It is not a natural color which the drug gives, but the footlights assist the effect and give to it the hne of fresh youth. Of course it kills. Arsenic is an accumulative poison, but what woman would not rather be dead than ugly ? A royal wedding cake is shown at the Exhibition by a Mr. G. d'Arcy, a local confectioner. It exceeds half a ton in weight, and is ornamented in the most elaborate style. This huge cake enshrines twenty gold rings, and the intention of the maker is to retail it by-and-by at 2s per lb, when doubtless there will be plenty of customers eager to embrace the '" off

chance " of a gold ring in a two shilling portion. Speaking of the inability of English women to swim, a writer in Trnth says that he never goes to one of our "sea side resorts " without noticing how very few English women there are who appear to know how to swim. At Brighton, Eastbourne, or Scarborough, you will see dozens of girls ungracefully bobbing up and down in 18 inches of water, but no f one in fifty swimming. Abroad, on the continent, at Trouville or Boulogne, plenty of ladiea swim about in the most fearless manner. This difference the writer attributes entirely to insular and idiotic prejudices. Here the unwritten law of Mrs. G-runcJy decrees that no girl shall bathe with any man, even her father, husband, or brother, and the consequence is that few of them learn to swim, and many do not bathe at all. Abroad, on the other hand, where the sexes bathe together, ladies are constantly taught to swim by their male relatives. The sooner, therefore, that we supersede our ideas on this point, and allow both sexes to bathe together the better — especially for the ladies. " Don't go too much on show, my son," remarked Mrs. Yeast to her boy. " The drum-major of a band, to be sure, is very attractive, but he doesn't furnish any of the music." — Tonkers Statesman.