AMERICAN FASHIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14931, 2 March 1912, Page 8

AMERICAN FASHIONS.

MAORI WOMAN AS CRITIC.

GIRLS PAMPERED TOO MUCH.

A Maobi woman, Hine Rawei, is in Chicago with her husband on. a lecturing tour, and the following alleged interview with her is given in the Chicago Sunday Examiner:— "For large-built women to wear fashionable tight skirts is the ; same as to' try' to got a '20-inch man through a 14-inch hole— you might get him in, but you can't get him out," said the dreamy-eyed Maori. "In New Zealand the native women don't dress so absurdly, and imagine they are fashionable. ■ ' "' '• ,

"Now, another thing about v your women," she added. "They go to clubs until they can't see straight. One woman was a member of 20, and when she joined the 21st sho told a friend, "I did so to get rid of the other 20.' What with being members of clubs, mistresses of homes, good wives—and existing ! Oh ! " Hero came a most wonderful expression of earnestness and emphasis into Mme. Rawei's eyes. ■ "And -then their ideas' ■of entertaining are so funny. They invito a whole .lot of peoplo in for afternoon tea. They fill the roomj? they jam it till the doors bulge out tho women chatter— leave. New Zealand women have not so much company as friends! " .... v "And then these ! mothers let their girls out on the streets late at night! Oh, my! Why in New-. Zealand they lock them up at night, and if tho girl goes ■ out the people wag their heads and say, Too bad, and she -used to be such a ; good girl too. She is out of the pale, that's aIL And you pamper your girls too much, hot thorn breathe. They won't get cold. . Now Zealand children live out of doors all the time. Every native child swims when : a babe. Why, there was a little baby girl two years old who foil in a well— drowned— trary to all precedents. ■ The only comment on the death of this little girl was: Why didn't the girl have sense enough to swim? A.nd our native women all rido horsesin any fashion-bareback or any .other way outside of. a. circus; some can. ride that wav, too. In tho .• interior they . still hold to "the good old practice of throwing their children into tho nearest river when they wish to punish them, and when they swim to shore throw them back again and again until exhausted. Then . they put them to "If you put children on '■'■ cushions at their case they will have cushion muscles and cushion brains. They need to get out and run. .And another thing young men and women don't use in New Zealand is rockers. We sit erect in straight backs. The rockers we preserve for old people and the • frail ones." _ ' \.