WOMAN'S WORLD

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVII, Issue 2741, 6 September 1923, Page 3

WOMAN'S WORLD

The Hon. H. F. Wigram, M.L.C., and Mrs Wigram are leaving England on September 13 on their return to New Zealand. Dr Elizzabeth Gunn has been appointed the representative of the Department of Health at the third Australasian Conference of School Medical Officers of Health, to be held In Melbourne in November next. Miss Selene Oppenheimer, National Lecturer for the Theosophical Society, will address a ladies' meeting at the Theosophical Society's room (upstairs Hopwood's Buildings), at 3 p.m. today. Her subject will be "The place of beauty in the soul's evolution.'' Those interested are invited to spend a profitable hour. Chinese shop signs have always been sources of considerable amusement to Europeans in .pities on the China coast and Malaya. As examples of unconscious wit, they are without parallel, states a writer in the Sydney "Daily Mail." One Chinese tailor in Shanghai advertises: 'Lady tailor make all same Paris fashion ladys can have fits upstairs." A fishmonger in the French Concession, who wants to air his knowledge of French and English, hangs out a sign. "Best fishes and poison (poisson) sell very cheap here." A wine merchant, who is evidently a connoiseur, informs his customers that he sells only "best Scotch wine." A Chinese lady who follows the ancient profession of midwifery advertises to all and sundry on her front door that she is a "first-class assistant Wife." Probably the most amusing of all is that of a bookseller who specialises in lurid literature, translated from the original French and Italian. He is a .student of psychology, and rips the covers off these books, replacing them with cheap paper covers, inscribed with: "The hundred best British poems." Outside his shop he feels that he must let people know his smart idea, which he heralds as follows: —"Please come inside —I show you something. Best books, very good books. Never fear read this book tramcar, no man can see inside. .inside very bad —outside very good." "PERFECT DEARS. "She's a perfect dear!" How often has this compliment been paid to an absent one. "She is a perfect dear," a.nd the tinge of acid in the tone indicates the temperament of the speaker. But there are a great many women who earn the compliment by their extraordinarily angelic behaviour. Whatever their friends do, however, badly they arc treated, they are never ruffled or angry. It is not the friend who has to find excuses; the "perfect angel" is always ready with a forgiving explanation of the bad temper and bad manners. Of course, as a result, such women get imposed upon. Their friends do not trouble about them as much as they do about less perfect people. The latter make demands. They are not going to bo treated in an off-hand manner; and with them the exhibition of bad temper results in rcproor at least, and the possible destruction of the friendship. So with more exact people, their friends are infinitely more careful. It is remarkable that those who are so ready to say how perfect another woman is are almost always | selfish, and the foundation of their satisfaction is always having their own way. They know that whatever they do their friend will be pleasant and forgiving; so if they want to cut an engagement or give way to a mood of ill-temper, they do it with impunity. The perfect angel makes allowances. She is extraordinarily quite satisfied. Often she is not even pained, that most difficult of all attitudes to put up with. Who has the best of the bargain f From the angel's point of view, her friend is probably (the word is used advisedly, for surely she must sometimes feel resentment) only endowed with rather a peculiar disposition, and allowances must accordingly be made for her. At the same time, -he must be perfectly well aware that by constantly making such allowances and showing how easily forgiveness for faults can be gained, she is permitting the selfish one to become increasingly selfish which is bad for her as well as for the angel. The friend, of course, gets things all her own way. She has obviously the best of the bargain. Whatever demands she makes are readily acceded to; whatever she docs is forgiven and greeted with a warm wetcome, although she knows how badlM die has been behaving. Forgiveness for faults is a very fine thing, but it can be given too easily. Perhaps the feeling that It mould be given is present, but for the very sake of retaining a ' permanent friendship, some demand must be made on both sides. GIRDLES DOWN THE AGES. In Rome a man without a girdle stamped himself thereby as a lazy, Tood-for-nothing fellow, while it was the girdle which mad e a vital distincLion between matron and maid. Roman girls wore girdles of white wool, •uriously knotted, an emblem of their yirlhood, and the unknotting of the. bride's girdle by the bridegroom was in important nart of the marriage :eremony. As a matron she did not wear a girdle at all, and it was left 'or the adornment of the men. When the 'Master of the Cavalry rode abroad he attracted the eyes of all the ladies by his superb girdle of scarlet leather, heavily embroiderea % ind fastened by a gold buckle (a writer in the Westminster Gazette reminds us). The buckle was in itself a symbol "If he be angry he knows how to turn his girdle." It was a foolish woman i Indeed, who entered into words with ii man whose temper was signified jpenly by his girdle hind-before. France, which has always loved

symbolism, has written round the girdle a history of its own. When l'ordre de chevalier was conferred upon «. gentleman he was girt with a snowwhite girdle as an emblem of the "white conduct" he must always practice, and when the widow of Pdillip 1., Duke of Burgundy, renounced her succession she did It by laying her girdle upon her dead duke's tomb. Charles VI. even issued an edict to forbid courtesans from wealing girdles that carried any ornaments either of gold or embroidery, but when it was found that the law could not be enforced a way out of the difficulty was discovered by the virtuous relinquishing their girdles altogether. They had their reward in a proverb:— "Bonne renommee vaut mieux que cointure doree." Bernhardt, who did nothing by halves, wore no fewer than eight girdles when she played her part of Theodora. "I have just maddened myself thinking how eight girdles! could be worn," wrote Burne-Jones. "It wouldn't be fair to call a necklace a girdle, or a garter-. Eight girdles—however do they come? But I have the greatest confidence in her. I dream of those eight girdles round that twig of the oriental willow." RECOMMENDED RECIPES. Cinnamon Biscuits.—Take 31b. of sugar, ilb. butter, 3 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, and enough flour to make a thick paste, (about 2 cups). Beat the sugar and butter to a cream add the cinnamon, and roll out thin, and cut into rounds. Bake in a quick oven on a tray sprinkled with flour. After making a trayful of biscuits a little more flour may be added to the mixture ;also an egg and a little rising powder. Drop a teaspoonful on a tray. Chocolate Sultana Cake. Take Jib. of batter, Jib of castor sugar, half teaspoon of baking powder, ilb. of chocolate, 1 teaspoon of ground rice, 2 eggs, 1 teaspon of vanilla essence, 2 oz of cleaned and picked sultanas. Beat the butter till soft, mix in the sugar and beat to a cream, add the chocolate, broken up and melted over the fire in three tablespoonfuls of water, mix in the yolks separately, beat well, then add the flour,, baking powder, and ground rice (well mixed) and fruit, drop in a tablespoonful of vanilla essence, and lastly stir in the whites of the eggs, beaten till quite stiff. Bake about threequarters of an hour in a moderate oven. Turn on to a sieve to cool, and, if liked, ice with chocolate glace icing. Old-fashioned Mint Drops.—Take lib. white sugar, J cup water, 3 drops oil of peppermint, cream of tartar. Boil the water and sugar together with just a very small pinch of cream of tartar. Let it boil briskly for about half a minute, then try if it will "feather." In order to do this, take a metal skewer with' a hole in the head. Dip it first into cold water, and then into the boiling mixture. If the skewer comes out with a film of mixture stretched over the hole blow at this film. If the sweet is quite done, the film will not vanish altogether, out will blow out in a "feather" at the far side of the hole; if the sweet s not quite done, th film will 1 r»ak and vanish. Keep on i>.st'ng c»Tjy few seconds till you are able to make your "feather." Take tho pan at once dX the fire, stir in thr-53 Imps of o' 1 of peppcrmnit, let the sweet cool for five minutes, an! then begin to beat it with a woodon spoo.i. Real steadily till it becomes opaque. '•'],-n —very quickly, so that it m: y not have time ro harden—droo it in tiny drops on a gr?af?ed sheet of <•:'.' J paper. The drops will harden at once.. Venetiau Cake. —Take i oup of butier, b 07.. of castor sugv 1 loz. of flour, 1 cup of blanched almonds, vau'-ia essence, the yoiks of 3 eggs. Cream the butter and sugic until v -xv light, add the egg yolks Will b« aten, tlien the blanched almonJs and va.*.i!la, and stir in lightly the flo-.r. The dough should be rather soft. Roll in the hands into small balls, first dipping in castor sugar before rolling Garnish with more almonds. Place the balls a little distance apart on floured tins, a.nd bake from 10 to 15 minutes of a moderate oven. Thursday for tea towelling at Collilinson and Cunninghame's—"Terrier" brand pure linen, 23ins. soft and absorbent, remarkable value 1/- yard. Superior red check glass towelling, 23in. 1/35 yard.*