Women’s Topics.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1057, 2 June 1892, Page 4

Women’s Topics.

‘BY AUNT ELLEN.’ I hear that Sir Walter _ and Miss Buffer have put off their visit to England for a little while. Wellington will be very glad, as their departure would create a sad gap in our midst. It was rumoured a little while ago that Mr and Mrs Arthur Rhodes intended to take Sir Walter Buffer’s house for the session, but now that there is such a pleasant reason for their not doing so —namely, that the present owners will want it themselves —I believe they intend to take Lady Douglas’ house instead.

Great activity has been displayed in and about Government House lately. Beatings of carpets have been going on unceasingly for days in the grounds, and the most casual observer could see that something unusual was on foot. It is to be hoped that all this activity will result in a very fresh and clean Government House, as a little bird lias whispered that something of the land was very much needed indeed, lhe house has been so little lived _in that the back premises were sadly in want of a thorough turn out. Let us hope they are getting it.

Let ‘ Aunt Ellen ’ have a word to say with regard to the new skirts wlncli are coming so much into wear. lie departure of the underskirt is nothing but a benefit, and if the change went no further we should have every reason to bless the new fashion. But why, oh, why should we break out into trains again? Years ago women walked much less, and it was thought dignified and imposing for them to employ their sedentary existence by dragging their long skirts after them. How, however, we walk more and. more, and it is undignified and certainly not imposing to see us skurrymg along holding up these dreadful impediments.

Miss Morrison, the secretary of the Tailoresses’ Union, Dunedin, has been looking after the interests of her sisters in work at Auckland. Miss Morrison is, so I hear, a young woman of great strength of character and natural talent for organisation, bhe asserts that the female worker m Auckland is occasionally a victim ot sweating. For the sake of Auckland s fair fame I trust she is mistaken. It she be correct in her assertions, then the sooner reforms are effected and the sweating ceases the better.

The Ladies’ Pages of the Mail go to pi-ess early in the week, bub, at time of writing, it is understood that Lord and Lady Glasgow are to arrive on Friday, this week. Let us hope Wellington will have a bright clear day, and that everything on the reception programme will go off swimmingly. The first Government house ball under the new regime is looked forward to with great cuiiosity, and many ladies have, I hear, postponed purchasing their ball dresses until the date of that allimportant function is announced.

I went to the Opera House last week and, although by no means a Mrs Grundy, I must certainly enter a protest against such vulgar exhibitions as the ‘ pas de quartre ’ danced by the four young girls ent’tled, ‘ The Fairy Four.’ Such performances may suit the debased tastes of habitues of the Tivoli and Empire music halls in London, places of amusement not very laregly patronised by respectable women, but in our Wellington theatre we expect to see decency respected. I am told that ‘ high kicking ’ is highly in favour with London playgoers, if so I cannot congratulate them on their taste. Stage dancing may. be both graceful aud decent—high-kicking, to my mind, lacks both grace and decency.

The very latest idea at Home is the bore-bell. Doctors, so it appears, were the first to use them. That very chatty, if somewhat frivolous lady journalist, who writes under the nora de plume of Miss Mantalini in the Pall Mall Budget, gives details of the new departure : ‘ What may a bore-bell mean 1 ’ asked a visitor.

‘ A bore-bell,’ said the doctor, ‘is an invisible bell arranged somewhere in the room—generally in the floor near the chair where the physician is seated at the time lie receives his patients. "When I feel that I have given the last comer enough of my timel quietly put my foot on the secret spot in the floor, and before anybody can say “ Jack Robinson ” my man has appeared and announced that I have a telegram or that some one wishes to see me immediately. The patient naturally bows herself out—you see it is generally x woman—and by means of my little subterfuge I am free. Of course, I don’t mean to say that I am obliged to use the “ bore bell ” every time I receive a woman patient. But I tell you I have found it a lucky escape sometimes. It is all very well to listen .to an account of the ailments, and give the required amount of sympathy to the patient before you, but when she drags in all her relations there has to be a stopping-place therefore the “ bore-bell.” ’

Of course the ‘ bore-bell ’ is but another way of telling that very ancient society ‘white lie. M!rs-So-and-So is not at home. The morality of the expedient may be questionable, but the utility of it is very evident. I verily believe I could write a whole page of the Mail on the subject of bores The worst of it is that they are generally such well meaning folk—one can t find it in one’s heart to he rude to them but one has simply to suffer, and pray for the time when they will get up and go. To have some worthy but extremely prosy acquaintance call just as you are on the eve of starting for the afternoon stroll, or when very busy with some important correspondence ‘ or household matter ’ is a trial to the average woman’s temper. Some one should offer a prize for the best way of getting rid of bores without being rude to them. I shall be glad to receive correspondence on this subject.

We all know Mr Gladstone, the ‘ Grand Old Man,’ is a writer of great industry, indeed, it is a puzzle to many how he finds time to do so much work in the way of articles for the magazines and reviews. It appears that Mrs Gladstone’s name is also valued in the list of contributors to magazines, especially in America, and so we find her contributing a series >1 interesting articles on * The Care of Children to the Ladies’ Home Journal. One of these articles is reprinted in another column this week, and others will follow in due course.

Apropos to children, I have received a copy of a monthly magazine, entitled ‘ Baby,’ the Mother’s Magazine. This is published in London at the very moderate price of 4d. . I hope to clip from its columns occasionally, as it seems to contain some very common sense, useful advice as. to the healt i, dress, food, and education of children.

The issue before me contains a striking instance of the almost criminal folly with which some English parents permit their young children to be tortured by overstrain in the way of lessons. The writer quotes a letter from a mother who wrote asking about the health of her three-year-old boy and what he ought to learn. This extraordinary mother—l sincerely trust there are not many more like her in England —proceeds to say that ‘ the elder brother was at four years old able to write nice letters, and now at eight yeai's old is fond of lessons, especially Greek and Latin and talks sensibly, making original remarks on every subject.’

Greek and Latin at eight years old. There may be exceptionally bright boys wlio can decline musa, musae at eight; but Greek at eight—the thought is pei'fectly appalling. How observe the very natural consequence of juvenile cram. The perplexed mother says that the young classical scholar at eight is ‘ terribly excitable, raves aud talks in his sleep, and when he goes on railway journeys imagines accidents and all that sort of thing.’ He is also irritable, restless, passionate, bullies his younger brother, and is subject, amongst other nervous symptoms, to twitching of the eyelids.’ We wonder, indeed, when he learns Latin and Greek at the age of eight. • The excessively idiotic parents attribute all these evils to—what do you think ? To over strain of the nerves, to over-work of the poor little immature brain, tasked to breaking by over-work. Oh, dear no. Ad milting her fear that he will become mentally affected, she asks the editress of ‘ Baby ’ if the symptoms are not perhaps due to the fact that ‘ his wet-nurse afterwards went out of her mind.’ Can you imagine a mother being so blind to the fact that it is the over-worked brain that is doing the mischief. That woman is a Mrs Montague in the first stages. Mrs Montague tortured her child by hanging her up to the waff in a dark cupboard. ‘Baby’s ’ correspondent is equally cruel to her child by allowing him to be driven in'to insanity by ‘ cram.’

And the moral of all this is for colonial mothers—do not permit any educational overpressure on your children. Do not be too anxious that Mary shall pass this or that standard, don’t let the juvenile brain be overtasked by too arduous home lessons, which are in far too many cases a device of an incompetent teacher to supply the deficiencies of his inadequate ignorant instruction during recognised school hours. Better far that a child should be physically strong and healthy than be a crammed up weakling. The evils of over strain in brain work may not be apparent whilst: the evil is being wrought, but they are bound to exhibit themselves in all their hrleousness sooner or later. Mothers—think first of your children’s health, and don’t task their poor little brains too much.

The only too frequent outrages upon unprotected women in English railway carriages have aroused the attention of several leading papers, which advocate the adoption of various safeguards. The ‘ Queen ’ newspaper insists upon Parliament making the railway companies put small panes of glass in the woodwork of the carriage subdivisions. Other papers draw attention to the utter inadequacy of the arrangements for communicating with the guard, one journal remarking :—‘What can be done ? First and foremost, every compartment should be placed in complete and easy communication with the guard's van. The system of communi cation in use on many lines is a mere mockery. Outside the window a cord is run along the length of the train, terminating in the guard’s van. Truly a sweet simple arrangement! A woman, trembling with fear, is expected to open the window, stretch half her body out of it, and fumble for this cord high above her head ; then, after hauling in several yards of slack rope, she may finally succeed in arousing the guard’s attention. For this cumbersome contrivance there is absolutely no excuse. By means of electricity instantaneous communication can be made with absolute certainty between guard and passenger.’

Of course, were the English carriages built upon the ‘ car ’ principle which prevails in America and Hew Zealand there could be no danger of women being subjected to the vile insults of travelling male brutes, but at present it is no uncommon thing lor a woman to have to travel a distance of 60 to 80

miles locked up in a compartment and at the mercy of some sensual minded wretch. Happily in this Colony such a thing could not occur.

Another of Her Majesty's grandchildren is to be married shortly, the Princess Marie of Edinburgh, who is only sixteen—surely this is too young. The Princess is to be wedded to Prince Ferdinand of Hohenzollern. She, like all the Duchess of Edinburgh’s children, has been educated strictly according to the tenets of the Creek Church.