LADIES1 COLUMN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8156, 18 January 1890, Page 4 (Supplement)

LADIES 1 COLUMN.

BEAUTIES IN THE BATH. Several of the ladies' Turkish bathing establishments of the fashionable type in New York are gorgeous, and in them you can see the neatest things extant in washerwomen. They are chosen for healthy presentabilifcy to begin with, and are .dressed in becoming uniforms, from the prettily capped and costumed girl who ushers you into the ante-room to the muscular, bare-armed one who attends you in the bathing and rubbing departments. The height of luxury is attained in several of the rival baths, and, says the New York correspondent of the Boston Sunday Herald, swell women are the customers who make the business profitable. By means of a small tip and a large lump of taffy I got the mistress of the lounging-room at a Turkish bath to tell us some gossip. According to this mercenary long-tongue, Mrs. Langtry is one of the 'most persistent bathers who came to the establishment. She might fail to keep an engagement with some famous frockmaker, but with her bathing mistress, never. But to let her talk— "It was a real pleasure to bathe Mrs. Langtry," said the woman. " She was so beautiful. Most women take medicine when they don't feel well, bub Mrs. Langtry took a bath. She ordered the kind she needed, and ib varied according to her feelings. Sometimes she would come here with a book and sit for two hours with her feet in hob water, studying her part, and the steam rolling up about her in clouds. The first of these foot baths cost her 50 , dollars, she told mo, and ib was. the only

time I ever saw her angry. She was suffering from a sick headache, and she wanted the bath kept at a certain temperature for a full hour. While I was adjusting the steam she laid her book aside and did not resume it for half-an-hour. In the meantime the vapour moistened the leaves, the ink ran all over the paper, and there wasn't a legible page in the book when she came to open it. It cost her fifty dollars to have the work copied. "At her bath Mrs. Langtry always had me rub her down with fine salt and alcohol, to bring the blood to the surface, and . KEEP HER FROM TAKING COLD. Many a time 1 have kneaded her to break up a cold taken the night before, and I used to beat a tatoo on her throat and a rataplan on her chest to exercise and rest her vocal organs. I washed her face, too, by inches, to clean out every pore, and I steamed her hair and eyebrows and eyelashes to make them grow. She had the most beautiful pair of feet I ever saw on a woman. They were perfection in shape and colour ; not small, but long, and every toe developed, and as soft as a baby's. Her heels were the regular pincushion pattern, and it was her boast that she never had a skin blemish in her life, and didn't know what a bunion meant. For a long time I washed her every day, sometimes with a sponge and not more than a gallon of water, and again with a ton of steam and a dozen brushes, always finishing by spraying her hair with violet water, rolling her in a hot sheet, preparing a cup of coffee, and protecting her Biesta from the slightest disturbance. I never called her by her name. In the bath she was known to us as Mrs. L. She was very generous and exceedingly kind-hearted. She never gave me an ordinary tip, but would tell me to buy' a pair of shoes or dress, and give me the money to pay for it. Then she often told me how to take care of my health, what to eat, and the nicest way Co get along with my patrons. I remember she once said that if I wanted to become popular 1 muse first please people, and then always give way to them. First try Co have my own way, and then, by giving up, in time I would generally get it in the end. 1 find it so, too. " Mrs. Potter used to come here very often. She was nice, but did not care for much water. She never took the showers. She WANTED TO BE RUBBED till her skin became soft, then douched with lavender water and orris, and handrubbed again. I had to keep this up until my hands were lame, and many times she has gone into the cooling room for a nap, just to give my arms time to limber out again. I never could find out what perfume she used, but it clung to everything she had on, and I could always tell whether she had been in during my absence by the sheets and towels in the linen baskets. She was generous, and always gave me a dollar ' to buy a pair of gloves.' " When I asked if any ladie3 drank at the baths she said, All of them drank something. The stage women as a rule call for mineral water, ginger ale, and coffee, and the non-professionals for clarets and other light wines. As a rule I can tell the married women, for they ordered champagne or a mixed drink, while the single ladies take a glass or pint of claret and drop off to sleep. Would you like something for a beauty sleep ?" "Yes, I don't mind," I replied; "what would you suggest ?" "Well, claret is a healthy wine, you know, but if you care to stay an hour I'll get you a cocktail." I tried a glass of St. Julian at 50 cents, curled up in a warm sheet, and fell asleep. The prizes in connection with the Paris Beauty Show at Neuilly have been announced. The first prize for competitors of French nationality was awarded to Mdlle. Fanny Fottikarosch ; the first prize in what may be called the foreign section being taken by an English competitor, Miss Amy Krauss. The number of votes recorded was 9000, the money taken at the doors amounting to £1200 sterling. An English spoculator has already guaranteed the necessary sum to organise an international beauty show in London. The Duchess of Fife is said to be thoroughly enjoying the emancipation of her new life, for she is to be seen walking about with her husband and looking into the shop windows with as keen an interest as any country cousin. A curious wedding oeremony recently took place in Dublin, when the clergyman, the son of a well-known Dublin artist, married his father to a second wife. I wonder if a eon ever married his own father before.