THE LADIES COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6147, 30 July 1881, Page 3

THE LADIES COLUMN.

'-■■■-' . FASHION NOTES. '' 1 Plaids are much worn.- -'■• ■' ; ■' .' | Tucks are ftgain fashionable. Skirts are made lbnger and fuller. Low shoes in fanciful forms grow in favour. The white pocket hankerchief h moribund. ';■ .-'.' : " .■.'"." ■ ' \ : ■ ■*' - The favourite waists is the box-pleated blouse. Belted short basques are worn by young ladies. : ■ "■■:■• Coaching bouquets are very large and brilliant. CuSs are not worn» when long-wristed kid gloves are. •■ •■ Full gathered _bodices are worn under peasant waists'.-"™'"- ■'■■-"- The rage for rede and yellowe is already on the decline. - Corsage bouquets are de rlgueur with the simplest toilets. AU fashionable handkerchiefs are enriched in some way with colour. Olive green, condor brown and Russian blue are favourite colours for coaching suits. Puffs or mull for the neck aud throat are more fashionable than ruches, frills or braids. The "Mascotte," a cunning little Frenchified turban, is the favourite walking hat for street wear.

Grey bordered pocket handkerchiefs are i worn with all sorts of costumes, and even in full evening dress. ■ The newest thine in collars has one end I longer than the other, lapped over on the I front of the dress.

Tucks on the lower and upper skirts of cheviot and flannel suits will be styled for travelling dre»aes this season. Ducks and swans swimming, playing and splashing in a pool, make a pretty design for a lady's washstand "splasher." Diamond combs encircling the chignon are encircled with real or imitation jewels or balls of gold, silver, jet, steel or amber. Surah, Bengaline or Victoria, andLouisine silks in delicate evening shades and white, take the lead for summer festival dresses.

_ A favourite motto for a washstand splasher in which water and ducks, geese, swans or frogs form a part of the design is "Let's take a splash."

The " obeVisk" coaching and racecoatse \\sX is as gay and striking as high colours, rough straw, a high crown, and wide, irregular brim can make it. '

A pretty design for the "splasher" of a gentleman's washstand shows a number of frogs about to plunge into a pool of water surrounded by sedge and club rushes. Wide soft belts of Surah or any erushablo fabric are folded and placed around the waist, with ends falling almost to the bottom of the skirt either in the back or on one side.

AUSTRALIAN WOMEN. Commenting upon Australia, and the personal characteristics of its native-born white population, a popular author pays the following compliment to Australian women. He says :—"I think they possess greater charms of face and figure, and a more delicate, refined style of beauty, as a rule, than their northern sisters. The Australian-born woman is generaly.tall, well-proportioned, agile, lithe of limb, and has all her features cut in a classic mould or rather a Grecian or aristocratic type. In plain words, I think Australian women are more generally pleasing, more lovely in feature, and moro graceful in figure, than English women. The climate has doubtless something to do with this : but beauty is noii by any means confined to the wealthier cU.sses. The free, out-of-door life, the abundant fare, the freedom from many foolish kinds of conventionality which handicap the English girl, all go in favour of the Australian. One in surprised to find so many really beautiful faces and faultless figures in all ranks ; and the observant student of 'the human form divine' must come to the conclusion that, so far as outward beauty is concerned the race has not deteriorated by its transplantation to the antipodes."

INTERESTING TO WIDOWS. A husband signed three notes or memoranda, giving certain plate and furniture to his wife for her own sole use and benefit, specifying in the third memorandum that it was to be hers and hers only from that date. By his will he gave all his property to his wife for her life, and after her death to his nieces equally. As some of the nieces were under age, an action was brought to decide the question whether or not the plate and furniture formed part of thepropety to be so divided. Vice-Chancellor Hall, in deciding that the gifts to the wife were invalid, and that all the plate and furniture must be considered as part of what was to be divided among the nieces, expressed his regret that he was obliged so decide, and he considered it a monstrous state of the law that such a gift could not be maintained. There are very few persons who will not agree with the ViceChancellor; and who would gladly see the law repealed which provides that to validate such a gift as the above it must be made a trust, and thereby involve a simple act in the troubles and responsibilities which so often arise out of a trust.

WOMEN'S TREATMENT.OF WOMEN. There is a general sentiment that women do not stand by each other, as men do by men; that we are envious, narrow and small, where our sex is concerned; that the greatest obstacle professional women have to overcome are the prejudices of womenthemselves ; that if a woman commits a fault, nobody is so quick and ready to heap opprobrium upon her as another woman. All this is to a certain extent, unhappily true; but it is by no meaDS generally true. .. The fashion of women sneering at women is passing into disrepute; so that nowadays, no women, who expects to pass as a well-bred lady, is guilty of the bad taste of speaking disparangly or slightingly of her own sex. Now and then one doee it, thinking thereby that she wins the esteem of men by so doing. She can make no greater mistake. Men admire large-mindedness and large-heartedness in women, quite as much as women admire those qualities in men. The more Btrongly and loyally women stand by one another, the more respectfully they treat and speak of one another, the more women honour women,, have faith in women, the better for us. We cannot expect men to honour and revere us, unless we ourselves honour and revere our own sex.—Mary A. E. Wager-Fisher in Sunday Afternoon.

MISCELLANEOUS.

The Empress of Russia is Honorary Colonel of the Chevalier Guard Regiment. Tight lacing is in disfavour. Waists are no longer to be in the hour-glass style. A bride is not so considered when three months have passed since her marriage. Girls having the dollars of their daddies are wearing the queer-looking hats of their grandmothers. . „ London ladies carry their muffs in the ballroom, and when they dance give the muff to another muff to hold.

As the bonnets grow smaller, the hairpins giow larger, until now every other woman you see has a brazen croquet arch in her tresses. .

The difference between a self-made man and a self-made woman is ten old papers, four hair switches, ninety-eight hair-pins, and a pretty , little -box labelled- " Face Powder." — : ..:,_.._....:.

There arc institutions in London where young ladies are taught to get in and out of a carriage, on and off a horse, to laugh with propriety, to manage their trains, and generally how to manage gauchertea in society. . ••■-■■. • A novel feature in amateur theatricals was lately introduced at an entertainment given in honour of the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, when a number of ladies took part in a Christy Minstrel performance, with.blackened faces, and caused, it is said, great fun by their comical antics. .'."■.' At a ball given by the Countess of Caithness at Nice, a new figure, called the roulette, was introduced in the cotillon, each gentleman carrying in his button-hole one of the 36 numbers of a roulette board, and the number drawn giving its.possessor a waltz with the dame of Ha choice. . Floral muffs are the latest eccentricity for evening wear in England. - They are made on a light foundation to match the toilet, and completely covered with sprays of leaves and blossoms; artificial or natural,, as the lady pleases; the former aro most in favour 00 Account of their imperishable nature. The ordinary hand bouquet is now, of course, quite superseded by his last fashionable "Clothing League for the abolition of petticoats" is the important title—it sounds much grander in .German -of a society of strong-mindcdTeutonicmaidcns and matron's, who hold their meetings in the Brunnen Strasse, Berlin. At a recent meeting moat eloquent speeches were made by the chairwoman and her supporters to prove that flowing garments were unhealthy, ungraceful, and objectionable from every point of view, and that it was incumbent upon tho sex "to assume a dualistio form of covering for tho legs as well as the arms." The proposition I met with general approval, one dissentient ' only standing up for tho denounced petticoat.