LADIES' GOSSIP.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIV, Issue 10776, 14 October 1895, Page 2

LADIES' GOSSIP.

(Centcrlvry Times.) I gee that rice-throwing ac weddings is falling into well-earned disfavour, and is about to be replaced by the very much pretuer and entirely - harmless confetti such as is used at Eastbourne and on the Riviera, at the Battles of Flowers.’lt is quite needless to refer again to tho danger attendin g tho promiscuous throwing of rice, as everyone will readily recall quite a number of accide.ntsf or whichit has been responsible. Such substitutes for rice as rose and chrysanthemum petals were found unsatisfactory, owing to their rapid discolouration and the unsightly stains they leave when trodden upon. Confetti are of course free from all such objections. They are tiny paper wafers, principally of gold and silver, with a few coloured ones mixed to add to the effect. These. were used in large quantities at a fashionable London wedding tha other day, being distributed to the guests for the purpose, and the progress of the bride down the staircase in a shower of gold and silver is stud to have been a very pretty sight. Even on the dresses they did cot look amiss; while they added to tha brightness of the scene as they fell on the carpets and among tho floral decorations. It need not be supposed that the coat of the confetti will bean expensive item, for since they were used at Eastbourne they have been manufactured by the ton, and the demand for them at weddings will extend their manufacture largely. Apropos of that remunerative work for women so often advocated in these pages —fruit aud flower gardening—an account of the successful labours of a few Irish ladies may prove full of interest and encouragement. One gentlewoman, writing to the Englishwoman's Review , shows plainly how great were tho obstacles she had to overcome. She lives with her sister in a lonely spot, four miles from the nearest neighbour, in the wild borderland of Tipperary and Kilkenny. As a land-owner she was boycotted a few years ago, apd then it was that she resolved to eee what she and her sister could do. Her beginnings were small, and she used to send ferns and plants through the post. Later she advertised, and then she printed a catalogue of her plants. Her business grew fast, and was due in no small measure to the excellence of her method of packing. j-j/'Our garden,” says this young lady, “consists of about two acres. We have no glass, no hotbeds; we sell no cut flowers, and rarely grow from seed. We have no gardener or skilled labour of any kind. We occasionally get men to ridge the ground. The rest of the wprk, which consists in dividing and planting out tho hardy perennials, is done by workmen’s wives and daughters, who live in our cottages, and are glad to earn wages. From February till June and from September to January either my sister or I is always in the garden. We dig, sort, label, pack and despatch all parcels ourselves, trusting to no one. Wo wear a short woollen dress and special boots and gloves. We have a splendid old-fashioned garden house, where we have all our things about us. Work goes on in fine and wet weather in fact it is in wet weather that we get double orders. We make a speciality of violet roots, and the demand for them never ceases. We send our parcels by post. Each variety is packed very carefully in damp moss, and is then rolled up in oiled paper, which is prepared by painting a mixture of paraffin and paint on strong paper, and allowing it to dry. We then pack in brown paper.” Tha whole of this lady’s business connection is in England. Thousands of her plants go toils London, and she has even sent parcels to Liverpool to be seat on to America, and others to Hull for Norway. The lady sums up the advantages of her

business thus. She keeps no gardener, unskilled labour is cheap, she pays no rons, and the place she lives in V that slie and he? sister can time to the work. Hence there are •few expenses and a . deal o un-.fit. The disadvantages no in the extremely hard work. And it is always increasing, for the more it suoceoco the more there is to do. Each day bring its own work, for if it were allowed to accumulate for even two or three days, a hopeless muddle would inevitably be the result. Yet. even with such disadvantages, these Udiao consider their business a very dedrabio one, since they are their own mistresses, aud can enjoy a good holiday in the slack season. This they generally spend in London smong_ their society frieuds, so as to keep' in touch with city life, but they do not very greatly regret their inevitable return to work and solitude after their holiday is over, The newest books and magazines follow theca to their flower farm, and they consider their position a most enviableone. Women often wonder why their hair falla out, and rarely attribute it to the chief cause, which is, says the Family Doctor, the want of cleanliness. Ofcea they are too busy to give their hair the amount of brushing it needs. Still oftener they are too negligent, or do not know that on strict cleanliness of tha soaip depends their chances of having good hair at thirty-five. Housework should be done with a muslin cap or towel folded to cover the hair to tho roots. House dust, which is mainly dead animal matter thrown off by clothing and bads, is deadly to lungs and hair. Housemaids’ consumption is generally due to breathing the dust and flue of ill-kept chamber.;, and the layer which collects at the roots’of the hair and kills it causa; much of the falling out of which matrons complain before forty.

When women comprehend the baleful influence of dust on the health, hair and complexion, they will banish carpets, upholstering and uawashing - draperies at once aud for ever, as the great receptacle; aud absorbents of dust. Where curtains and carpets or large mats are used, the air constantly receives floating dust at each movement; not much, it is tme, in carefully kept houses, bub quite enough, as it gathers on the scalp, week after week, to form with the natural oil and sweat a thin, malignant crust, iu which the root of tha hair slowly decays and dies. As most women wash their heads not oftoncr than once in aix weeks, the effect is best left indefinite. Scalp irritations are not unknown, causing months and years of trouble. But offener the skin of the head, clogged and 1 loaded with dead scales of matter, Icses its functions, and the hair drops off. Wo are apt to think that tha average Englishwoman of about three hundred years ago was a comparatively uneducated person, but any such notion is dispelled by tbe perusal of a quaint little book entitled “ A Guide to rbc Female Sex.” It was written by Mrs Hannah Woolley, aud gives a Iht of tha lady’s by no means inouskloriblo accomplishments. “The things I pretend greatest skill ia,” she says, “ are all works wrought with a ncedlo, all transparent works, shell work, moss wort, also cutting o? priats, . and adorning rooms or cabinets or stands with them, all kinds of bougie works upon wyres, all manner of pretty toyes, rocks made with sheila or in . sweets, frames for looking-glasses, feathers of crewel for the corners of beds, preserving all kinds of sweet-meats wet or dry, setting out of banquets, making of salves, oyntments, waters, cordials, healing any wounds not desperately dangerous, knowledge in discerning the symptoms- of most diseases, and giving such remedies as are fit, all manner of cookery, writing and arithmetic, washing black or whije sarsenets, making sweet powders for the hair or to lay among linnen.”

This list looks formidable, truly, but only at first glance. ‘ Compare this housewife of the Merria Monarch’s days with the housekeeper of to-day. It would he more difficult to say .what she cannot do than what she cam. She, must have graduated in every “detail. of cooking, washing, cleaning, dressmaking, nursing, mending, preserve-making, house decoration, piano-playing, ,to say nothing of the thousand and 'one other accomplishments that the conscientious woman makes herself mistress of iu the most casual and unassuming way. She ia full of infinite possibilities ia tha way of surprises as to her skill, and the idea of cataloguing them as Mrs Woolley has done would fill her with dismay. She would not consider herself worthy of the name of home-maker if she were not mistress of these occult arts, but, like a careful general, she always keeps some of her reserves in the background, considering that in those lies the secret of her strength. That Mrs Woolley had a progressive mind is shown in her earnest exhortation to her sisters to study Latin, “Since it may hence appear, ladies, that you have no Pygmean souls, but as capable of gigantic growth as your male opponents.” Had she lived to-day, there is little doubt that this thoughtful woman would have been one of the foremost supporters of women’s franchise; in her own time she may possibly have been marked out among her contemporaries as an original woman who had the courage of her own convictions.

After enduring the masculine-looking collars, vests and neckties worn by smart women for the last two seasons, a man has at lengthdecided to tell us whiit he thinks of them. This courageous individual is Mr C. H. Crandall, and in tho North American Review he tells us how groat is man’s dislike for and condemnation of all forme of woman’s attire that suggests mannishness. Men, says the writer, naturally wish to pay, and do pay, the greatest deference to womanhood, but they demand in return that woman shall dress so an to suggest unmistakable womanliness. We learn, too, from the article that.it is not the.material of a dress that gives it grace and beauty in a man’s eyes; it is the fit, harmony of colours and suitability that make it a thing of beauty. Men prefer quiet colours as a rule, such as-greys or browns, and only ask that the face of the wearer be bright and healthy. There is a strong tendency, too, in our tastes to go back to Nature to learn her methods of clothing her forms, leaving nothing but an impression o£ tenderest harmony everywhere, avoiding glaring contrasts, and covering nothing from sight that is beautiful of itself.