LADIES' COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7270, 7 March 1885, Page 4 (Supplement)

LADIES' COLUMN.

FASHION NOTES. GrOito ornaments are no longer in vogue. Chinchilla is the correct for to pat on grey satin garments. Black lace dresses are worn at balls and evening parties. Tulle forms all or a part of nearly every ball dress this season. Silver-spangled tulle is a much admired tissue for ball dresses. Evening shoes are of the colour of the dresa, or golden bronze. The rage for bisque dogs and cats of all ■izes is on the increase. There is a revival of French taste for mirrors in artistic interiors. Flowers are again in vogue in Paris, at least for trimming ball toilets. Fur trimmings should match the material on which they are issued in colour. All jewels are worn, but the favourites are pearls and diamonds, especially the last. Cream-white and pale-rose and the colours preferred by young girls for evening dress. Steel and silver tinsel are the correct metal trimmings for grey stuffs of all kinds and in all colours. The fashionable colours for the season are steel-blue, grape-red, chestnut, mnshroom, autumn meadow green and twilight pink. Evening gloves are as long as ever, and always of nnglazed kid or Suede, and the preferred colours are beige and tan in various shades. Feather marabouts, aigrettes of gold and silver, and diamonds, real or mock, are the garnitures for coiffures at balls and dancing parties. Black lace evening dresses are very aislingiie, whether trimmed with jet, steel or bright silver, or brightened with gold and diamond jewellery. The wide scarf sashes so fashionably worn with reception toilets are of wide ribbon, edged laces, or of velvet, plush, broohe or entirely of lace. Coiffures, to be fashionable, must be in the form of a figare 8 on the top of the head, with frizzled bangs on the forehead and in the nape of the neck. As a foil to white and pink evening dresses, so much worn this season, hostesses encourage the wearing of black toilets, lace, of course, being preferred. A GOOD CUP OF TEA. This universal beverage is the most abused of anything yet introduced to the household. The number of genuinely good cups of tea tnat one gets before passing the grand climacteric may be counted on the fingers. It is indeed the "cup" that might "cheer," but more often exasperates, from the careless manner in which it is prepared. Tea shonld never be made in a metal pot. It shonld always be made in an earthenware teapot, even if it is turned into a silver one for the table. The beat tea-pot is the honest old-fashioned '• Brown Betty," with its smooth glazed brown surface. Before use it should be well scalded, and made nice and hot. The water should be boiling; it should be freshly boiling, too, and not water tbat has stood in the kettle for some time. Allow one teaspoonfal of tea to each person ; put into the teapot, which is hot from the recent scalding; pour over this tea a cupful of boiling water, and pour it directly off again; than pour in the amount of boiling water required, and keep hot, but do not boiL The object of the rinsing is to remove any duagreable matter, and also to soften the leaf and make it more ready to distil its flavour. The Russians claim by this treatment that all coarse and arid flavour is removed, and only the most subtle and delicate quantity of the tea remains. Certainly tea treated in this way ie like a new beverage. Boiling spoils the flavour, but letting it stand and keep hot, just at the boiling point, extracts the flavour, and does not give the bitter taste which boiling always induces. The things to be remembered are—to have a hot, earthen-tea-pot ; water freshly boiling, not merely simmering and showing little bubbles all over the surface that break and expel a cloud of steam ; and ap accurate measur ment. of tea. After adding the water do not boil. Mind all this, and your tea will indeed be tho "cup that cheers."

ARTIFICIAL DIMPLES. This ia how they produce dimples in America : It seems that dimples have become fashionable in certain American circles, and, aa in other phases of life, where the demand exists a supply appears. The artist in dimples places a small glass tnbe(so says the Chicago Herald)over thespot where the dimple is designed to appear. The air is suoked out of the tube, thereby raising a small protuberance of skin, which it ligatured, or tied with a piece of fine silk, and then duly snipped off with a keen knife. The wound is next bound up, a silver cone inverted, being placed over it, so as to mark its centre. The part is " dressed" daily, and after the lapse of five days, as a rale, the injury has healed, and in its place appears " the coveted dimple." The artificial production of the dimples must, therefore, now be added to the repertoire of those interesting gentlemen and ladies who profess to adjust bent or ugly noses, to correct impolite eyebrows, and generally to set human nature right in its .esthetic and fashionable features. CHIT-CHAT. The Princess of Wales is said to have the handsomest mourning in Europe, and she wears grey instead of black. When Jimpkins got married for the fourth time and his friends teased him about it, he said that he could not help it, as he's Benedioted to it for eome years. Mistress of the houee (to now arrival): "Why, Bridget, where in the world have you been in all this rain ?" Bridget (dripping wet): " Shure, an' Oi've been hangin' out the clothes to dhry, mum." It is understood that Mrs. Langtry will play the part of the heroine in a version of "La Princesse George," of Alexandre Dumas the younger, which has been prepared for her by Messrs. Comyne Carr and B. C. Stepheneon, in view of her approaching season at the Prince's Theatre, London. The Turkish woman is superstitious to an extreme. She believee in charms, and will not live an hour without her three-coloured bit of leather, which incloses the mystic phrase that is to ward off the evil eye. Tuesday she considers as the mother of ill-luck, and will not celebrate the birthday anniversaries of her children, or even record the date, for fear that eome magician may use it to cast a spell against the child. Miss Caldwell, of Virginia, a young lady who upon the attainment of her majority has just come into a large patrimony, has made a Christmas gift of £60,000 to the Pope. The intention of the donor is to secure the establishment in New York of an Ecclesiastical University on a similar basis to that of the College of the Propaganda Fide. The Pope has made known his intention of conferring upon Mies Caldwell a signal mark of his appreciation of this magniucent gift. The gorgeous Imperial mantle worn by Mdme. Sarah Bernhardt in M. Sardou'e new play, " Theodora," ie the talk of the hour in Paris. Though not so valuable aa the original, which wae said to be worth £120,000, the modern mantle cost £320, and is exactly copied from the famous mosaic portrait of the Empress of Ravenna. It is made in blue satin bordered with gold, and sown with peacocks having sapphire and emerald plumage and ruby eyes, and ie worn by Theodora when visiting the Hippodrome in state. A Spanish marriage ceremony has some peculiar features. Especially notable ia the fashion of velarAones, During the mass said after the marriage ceremony, the couple, with their godfather and godmother, kneel at the foot of the altar; a silken cord is thrown around the neck of the bride and the bridegroom holds the ends of it; then they throw a large strip of silk cloth over the heads of the newly married pair, after which a lighted wax candle is handed to them, and godfather and godmother as well; then the priest besprinkles all four with holy water, and blesses them, and thus the ceremony is ended. A Spanish lady does not consider herself thoroughly married without a velacion. To protect children from being stolen by any of the sprite throng, ignorant Welsh folk put a knife in the child's cradle when left alone, or a pair of tongs across, but the best preventative of all is baptism. In Fries, land a Bible is placed upon the child's pillow ; in Thuringia the father's trousers are hung against the wall. In China a pair of trousers belonging to the child's father 'are put on the frame of the bedstead in such a way that the waist hangs downward; on the trousers a piece of red paper is stuck, having four words written upon it, intimating that all unfavourable influences are to go into the trousers instead of afflicting the child. The Portuguese babies always have a little nand made of red coral, called a figa —a hand with the thumb thrust between the first and second fingers—hung round their necks tw ktep off the Evil Qte.