Ladies' Column.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 307, 22 December 1877, Page 3

Ladies' Column.

The Duchess of Edinburgh, being of the Greek Church, finds that her right to the custody of her own children, in the event of her temporary absence from England, is likely to be disputed. M. Worth, the English king of Erench fashions, has, according to Coming Events, made up his mind that the next change in female attire shall be in the direction of very short petticoats, colored clock stockings, visible to the swell of the calf of the leg, and the low-cut buckled shoes of the early part of last century. Countess Marie Von Bismarck, daughter of the Prince, is to be married, it is said, to Count Leimdorff, one of the handsomest men in Berlin, and the favorite aide-de-camp of the Emperor, who for several years has never gone anywhere without him. The Countess Maria is now nearly twenty-nine years old. Her former betrothed, Count d’Euhlenburg, died of typhoid fever in 1875. Mrs. Brassey has written a book about the voyage of herself and husband round the world in their yacht; to be published next season by Messrs. Langman, under the title of “ A Voyage Bound the World in the Sunbeam.” It will be embellished with maps, eight fullpage illustrations, and upwards of seventy woodcuts. Princess Demidoff, a young Bussian lady, wearing the full uniform of a Hussar, and mounted on a magnificent charger, rode at the head of a splendid regiment of cavalry through the outskirts of Bucharest not long ago. She is the daughter of the honorary colonel and proprietor of the regiment, who is reported as spending £IO,OOO a year upon it. Mrs. Butler (the late Miss Thompson) has started for Adrianople, with the intention of crossing the Balkans to the seat of war ; but Coming Events adds that her husband, Major Butler, C. 8., was unable to procure leave from the Horse Guards to accompany her. This is the gossip of the clubs, and as such we give it. H.B.H. the Princess Louise has presented the Victoria Hospital, Gough House, with a large water-color which she paiuted expressly herself for the Louise ward. H.B.H. is patroness of the hospital. The subject is a nurse sitting with a scrap-book on her knee, having a child standing on either side of her. H.B.H. has also presented the hospital with the last new engraving of her Majesty, to be hung in the entrance hall. Miss Emma Pearson and Miss M'Laughlau, the two English ladies who went out with the ambulance service in the late Servian war, say that the Bussians do not care for English help of this kind, and it is not likely that any Englishwomen will attempt to work with them. The Turks, they say, do not display any naturnal animosity towards the English, but they are so utterly destitute of any feeling of respect for women that ladies shrink from hospital service among them, The visit of General Grant to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle was an event of interest to those who participated in it, and to the world outside. It was regarded as a mark of great consideration for the Queen to invite the American General and his family to dine with her, and to spend the night within the walls of the old castle. Minister Pierrepont and his wife accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Grant and son. Dinner was served in the Oalc Boom, and the party was small, as etiquette requires that the Queen shall converse with every guest. The enjoyment of the company was unconstrained, the Queen taking a pro-

minent part in the conversation, and also the Princess Beatrice, who is very entertaining, and thoroughly understands American as well as English social topics. The value of the wedding gifts of Miss d’Albe, niece of the ex-Empress Eugenie, is said to be 1,600,000d015. One of these was a cameo ring which belonged to Charles V. Eleven necklaces of brilliants adorned the collection. The Duke d’Ossuna, whom she married, is said to be one of the wealthiest personages in the Peninsula. The late Mr. Hart devoted himself for many years to his statute of the ideal woman. One day an acquaintance in Italy spoke to him of the long time he had given to the work. “Well,” said he, smilingly, “since it takes Nature eighteen years to make a beautiful woman, why should I finish my work more quickly ?” An Illinois clergyman is reported to have said the other day at the laying of the cornerstone of a new meeting-house : “If boys and girls do their sparking in church, I say amen to it. I have a daughter whom I cherish as the apple of my eye. When she is of suitable age I would rather she should be courted iu the house of God than ia a theatre.” Certain royal ladies of Europe have these little peculiarities : Queen Victoria is especially fond of Indian shawls. The stone which is her speciality is the sapphire. The Empress of Bussia has an unrivalled collection of turquises and pearls. The ex-Queen Isabella of Spain has the most valuable collection of laces in the world. The Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimer is said to possess the finest set of rubies, and the Empress of Austria the best emeralds and opals in Europe. The World says :—“ .Some of the Scotch papers are giving details of a very extraordinary will case which will shortly be submitted for trial. The story is this : The daughter of a country practitioner in a little village in Scotland awoke one morning to find herself a great heiress. The traditional uncle, who had come from India with a fortune, had died, leaving a beautiful estate and fully £300,000 in money and West Indian property to his niece, Miss Macpherson Grant. At that time she was bright, clever, handsome, and about twenty-one years of age. She took possession of her property, and lived in great style, keeping a large stud of horses, and driving tandem herself all over the country. Her father and mother she took under her wing, and was devoted to them to the last day of their lives. She established them in an independent and elegant house near Edinburgh, but had them a good deal with herself at Aberlour House, on the Speyside. Some fifteen years ago a young lady came to pay her a visit. She was a stranger to Miss Grant, and was brought by some friend. It ended in this young lady, Miss Temple, leaving her father and mother, with their entire concurrence, and living with Miss Grant, for better or for worse, till death them should part ; in fact, they formed such a friendship that they agreed and entered into an engagement that neither should marry, and that they should pass their lives together. Miss Grant then and there refused a very good offer of marriage, and rejected all other suitors. The conditions were that Miss Grant was to leave her estates and everything to Miss Temple if Miss Temple on her part never left her and never married. A will was made by Miss Grant, under which her property was to pass to the Temples. Two years ago Miss Temple married. Last Christmas Miss Grant died. The will was revoked. She never forgave the defection, she never made another will, and the estate goes to an obscure country doctor in Aberdeenshire, who hardly knew he was related to Miss Grant, and never saw her. Other four relations, poor tradespeople in Banffshire, come in for a share.”

The death of Brigham Young, Esq., which recently took place, probably plunged more families into mourning than any other demise during the last few centuries. Seventeen disconsolate widows wrung their thirty-four hands, and lifted up their respective voices and wept for the beloved object whose fortnightly visits they should never again receive. Eiftysix lonely orphans were cast upon the cold mercies of an unfeeling world. It must be admitted that Mr. Young has, after all, been moderate in his absorption of wives and production of orphans. What do seventeen and fifty-six amount to after all ? Considered as a Crying Brigade they might be effective, provided they complied with the exigencies of their position, and did not harbor a dry eye amongst them. Had it been Brigham’s fate fate to die anywhere but in Utah, had he been mourned over in some less watered territory, his relatives might have given a certain celebrity to his obsequies by weeping an entirely new and original salt lake in memory of him. A good moist widow, who knows her business and does it without any nonsense, is calculated to have a capacity of 140 tears a minute, each tear being one fluid drachm. Statistics have satisfied mankind that an average woman can cry two days and nights continuously at a stretch if refused a new bonnet, and it may therefore be safely assumed that each of Brigham’s seventeen bereaved widows would be good for thirty-six hours’ straight crying. Therefore it is easy to calculate that each widow would have a flow of about three tons of water. The prophet went off at a most inconvenient time for all concerned. In fact it would have been difficult for a man so circumstanced as he was to have found a suitable time for going off. As it happened, the fiftysix orphans were in various critical stages. Ann Maria Young, the senior orphan, aged forty-three, was in revolt because her venerable father had never sealed her to anybody, and now his restraining hand is off will probably elope with the (gentile) milkman. John W. Young is notoriously in love, and as a youthful and inexperienced lad who has only who has only five wives, it is feared he will enlist or something, now that his father no longer exists to make the fair one, who doesn’t care to.be Mrs. Smith, juu., No. i, listen to the voice of Heaven and camp with John. Various Misses Youngs are just in their teens, and are suspected of reading Swinburne at

Tabernacle, bound like the Book of Mormon, while forty-two teeth are in process of cutting among the youngest Youngs, who are fractious, and Brigham was looked to, to do all the hush-a-by business of nights. Starching and Polishing Shirts and Collars. —Put a little common wax in your starch, say two ounces to the pound ; then, if you use Glenfield or any other thin patent starch, be sure you use it warm, otherwise the wax will, get cold and gritty, and spot your linen, giving it the appearance of being stained with grease ; it is different with collar starch, it can be used quite cold—however, of that anon. Now, then, about polishing shirts. Starch the fronts and wristbands as stiff as you can. I always starch twice—that is, starch, dry, then starch again. Iron your shirt with a box-iron in the usual way, making the linen nice and firm, but without any attempt at a good finish ; don’t lift the plaits ; your shirt is now ready for polishing ; but you ought to have a board same size as a common shirt-board, made of hardwood, and covered with only one ply of plain cotton cloth. Put this board into the breast of your shirt, damp the front very lightly with a wet sponge, then take a polishing iron, which is fiat and bevelled a little at one. end—polish gently with the bevelled part, taking, care not to drive the linen up into wave-like blisters ; of course this requires a little practic, but if you are careful, and persevere, in a short time you will be able to give that enamel-like finish which seems to be so much wanted. To dress collars—For this purpose use best starch, say 21b., and 4oz. wax, 6J pints of water ; first dissolve the wax in boiling water, take the goblet off the fire and allow it to set for five minutes ; during this time dissolve the starch in the smallest possible amount of cold water,, then pour it gradually into the goblet and boil for 25 minutes, keep stirring all the time. This starch can be used quite cold ; rub it well into the collars, wring as tight as you can, finish by wringing in a cloth, then iron. Thus you will have them stiff without being hard, and when well dressed will have that beautiful elastic finish so much admired iu new collars.— James Gormley in English Mechanic.

FASHION GOSSIP. Japanese dressing-gowns are all the rage for both sexes. All dressy sleeves must be made a la Duchesse, that is, coming only to the elbow. Make your new polonaises with the Breton vest and square collar, trimmed with bands of embroidery. The crocheted lace so much worn is imported from Ireland. The newest hats are the Paul an Virginia. They are turned up on one side far toward the back, and have high crowns. The new style of undersleeve is not an undersleeve at all, but an oversleeve, and is made of muslin insertion and Valenciennes lace, and worn over the sleeve of the dress. Large muslin and cambric collars will be worn with them. The newest designs in bangles—which, by the way, are by no means going out of style, seventeen and eighteen being considered a moderate number to be worn on one arm—is a pendant of gold and silver combined, the original of which, a relic of ancient Borne, was exhumed from the Esquiline Hill, and is in the shape of a three-sided cow-bell. It has mystic Greek characters engraved on both sides, and was probably first used as an amulet to ward off sickness, the “ evil eye,” &c. Another, a Pleasantonian novelty, is a round piece of blue glass set in a frame of either gold or silver. Brooches of solid half circles of silver, engraved and enamelled with circular pendants and characteristic designs, are another novelty. A man’s description of the new dolman mantle : “ A sorb of cross between the ancient’s long double-barrelled basque, with pointed haversack, and the Martha Washington nightgown, cut goring and elaborately trimmed with old style ball fringe. It gives a careless air to the figure, about as pleasing as might be formed by drawing a meal-bag on a pump.” A caprice in note-paper fashions is that the upper right-hand corner of the sheet should appear to turn over and be transfixed by a gilt pin to hold it down. On this turn-over piece is placed the address, generally in old English characters. The envelope has also a pin inserted at the seal, which has sometimes a shadow below it. So exactly imitated are both pin and shadow that several persons have been deceived by them. In jewellery the newest designs for pins are long bars of gold or onyx set with diamonds, for scarf-pins, or to be worn at the neck. Some of the handsomest designs have onyx bars two inches long, from which the diamonds are hung as if they were slid on, a gold bar resting on the onyx. Some of these pins are in such designs as lizards encrusted with diamonds, or long arrows barbed with diamonds, and a large diamond set near the tip. In earrings, the designs are equally rich and unique. Arrows of gold with the diamond set above the centre, the diamond on a screw which passes through the ear, and the arrow is thus held in place ; some cf these arrows have large turquoises in the place of diamonds;; they are very handsome, but not as beautiful as the earring in the shape of small half-wreaths ; the diamonds set in tiny leaves of gold. Th o - two ends of the wreath fasten by a spring, so that they look as if they hung through the ear ; these are exceedingly graceful, and are imitated in pearls ; in both cases the jewels swing free from the main setting, shaking the glittering with every motion of the wearer. Diamond aigrettes, or less cestly imitations, are worn with the feather aigrette above them.