Gossip.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1037, 15 January 1892, Page 6

Gossip.

Signalling by jewellery is the latest fashion. Brooches, pins, and other articles will signify such questions as 1 Shall we keep company . and are said to open unbounded prospects for the non-proposing sex-

According to the report of the Irish Ladies’ Work Society, an increased demand exists for nightcaps, which are now being elaborately made.

An old woman lias taken up her abode m a wood ou Lord Annaly’s estate at Kildysart. She has made a bed of fern leaves between the trunks of trees, sticks and ferns forming a rude thatch. The only article of furniture is a crucifix. She subsists on bread and water, and says she has resorted to this wretched mode of existence as a penance.

A woman had a horn, resembling that of a ram, successfully removed from her head in a Birmingham hospital. It was quite hard, and extended from the top of the forehead and over the skull to the nape of the neck. It had been six years forming, her hair being combed to conceal it.

Mrs J. C. Barr, the American lady whoso fruit farm has been so successful, has adopted a curious method to raise the raspberry. The berries are rubbed in dry earth until the seed separates from the pulp. Barth and seed are then planted, and covered with mulch uutil the spring ; then the covering is removed, and the little plants come up at a speed hitherto unknown.

A clergyman’s widow recently advertised in a church paper the position of ‘lady curate.' A lady curate to help in the parish might be seemly enough, but what would happen if she desired to take part in the services 1 Yet there is probably no rubric to prevent a member of the laity, even if a woman, from reading the lessons.

The Duchess of Edinburgh inherited her famous furs from the Empress of Russia, and Mrs Mackay has a mantle of black fox made up of 10,000 separate skins, which eight years ago cost £2BOO. The most valuable set of fur known to exist is worn by the present Empress of Russia. It was a gift to her on her coronation by the town of Yikoutsk, in Siberia. It weighs 16oz, and is priced at £12,000.

Mrs Grimwood in her book gives a pretty account of her relations with young. and feminine Manipur :— ‘ Some of the Manipuri girls are very pretty. They have long, silky hair and fair complexions, with jolly brown eyes. They ci'b their hair in front in a straight fringe all round their foreheads, while the back part hangs loose, and it gives them a pretty, childish look.’ Every child is taught to dance in Manipur. . The only restriction placed upon women is that when they marry they must put back their fringes.

Dr. Arabella Kenealy is by no means dis. tressed to find a good many women must remain ‘spinsters by reason of the preponderance of their numbers. She views the faob with cheerful equanimity, for she says: — ‘ This numerical preponderance it is which has brought into woman’s life the allimportant factor of competitive struggle—that factor so essential to the development and survival of the fittest. . . . The increased and increasing surplus of women begins now to do still better work, for it is forcing upon us the impossibility of marrying all our daughters, and we are compelled, therefore, to provide them with professions whereby they can make provision for themselves. In this is seen the best possible result of our excess in number, this swelling of the tide until it lias over lowed the domestic precincts, and has carried, us out into the current of larger and fuller life.’

There is an extraordinary fashion, if fashion it can be designated, prevailing among a somewhat large section of the fair eex. It consists of douching themselves with pungent compounds commonly known and vended under the name of scent. The ladies apparently do not confine the essence to handkerchief alone, but make the whole garments and body reek with the odour, which is nob exactly divine. How, there can be but two purposes to which such saturation of the clothing is allotted, either it is to cover some natural and offensive exudation or the human cuticle, or it is in hopes of attracting members of the male species toward them, iu the same manner that many animals and insects do. In either case, however, it surely is not a very nice habit, and there is no getting away from it. Even as the badger and the musk-rat, so does the human scent dispeller pollute the atmosphere for many yards around.

One of the most poetic things about a fashionable woman’s toilet is her handkerchief. I refer, of course, to those dainty bits of lace which the coquette drops in order that her cavalier may, as he picks it up for her, catch a whiff of the intoxicating perfume which it exhales. But there are other handkerchiefs. There is the handkerchief which the fashionable woman thrusts under her pillow, the plain white batiste, hemstitched and perfumed with iris, a delLate and soothing odour. Then there is the morning handkerchief of foulard, white or red, large and useful for outing, purposes. Something more dressy is batiste, in delicate colours. For a dinner party choose mousseline de soi, the border being embroidered with a delicate spray of flowers. A pineapple embroidered with coral and trimmed with Mechlin is very stylish. The handkerchief of the ball toilet must be light, cobwebby, and airy, and always white and never perfumed, save by means of a sachet. The ball handkerchief calls for an Alengon border.