CHIT-CHAT.

New Zealand Mail, 3 December 1896, Page 68

CHIT-CHAT.

" One of the new fads that started with the Cornell University boys is the fashion of wearing autograph hats/' says the Washington Star , “ The hats are made of white canvas, with stitched brims. Names can be written in ink anywhere on the surface. One of these had several names of well-known men written upon it. Sentimental young men collect the names of their sweethearts, though thi&& has its drawback, because there is always the chance that the last girl will want to know all about the other girls whose names she finds written on the hat before hers. The words are usually printed, though script makes a prettier hat, and looks less like an advertising device. To see stalwart young college men stalking along with these hats on gives one the impression of one of those impecunious individuals who marches up and down the busy streets with a printed placard on his back to the effect that ‘ a regular dinner can be had at the Blank dairy lunch for twenty cents.’ However, the fad is growing, and by winter the white hats will be black."

The Emperor Menelik is the fifth husband of his wife, Empress Taitu, and she is stated to be a most lovable woman, with regular features and very light brown skin, large, black, expressive eyes, small hands and feet, and splendid bust. She wants to know everything that the Emperor does, or says, or writes. She gives councils, and dictates letters. She wears gold ornaments round her neck, wrists and ankles. She will have to bolt if her husband should die, or she will bo destroyed by her enemies, who are man} 7 .

Little, if anything, has been said of Li Hung Chang’s wife, most folk probably believing that no such person exists. She does exist, however, in the very flesh (unlike Mrs Harris), and is both young and beautiful. She is rich, too, possessing wealth so vast that that of the Vanderbilts and Goulds is as nothing in comparison. She lives in a magnificent palace, on the banks of the Pei-Ho, surrounded by her household gods, wonderful furniture, birds, peacocks, aquaria, botanical collections, carved ivories, gems, bibelots and pottery. Many hundreds of servants are at her beck and call, and she spends money most lavishly, although rendering a strict account of her expenditure to her lord and master, by whom she is adored. She is, moreover, the happy possessor of two thousand coats, twelve hundred pairs of “ trowserettes," or bloomers, and five hundred fur robes, fashioned out of the finest and rarest skins. She is also a great adept in the art of hair-dressing, and has more than twenty different coiffures, each more becoming and fascinating than the other. Her feet, from having been too closely compressed in infancy, according to Chinese custom, are so small that she is unable to walk more than two or three yards at a time. She bathes twice a day in orange oil and acacia bloom, after which she takes an airing in her sedan chair.

In Ontario at the present moment the officials are in a state of perplexity bordering on distraction, owing to a serious omission in the new marriage laws introduced into the State. All reference to the usual consanguinity clauses has been omitted from the regulations issued to the authorities throughout the country, so that, until this blunder has been officially rectified, people within the prohibited

degrees cf relationship can insist upon being married in Ontario. In order to prevent any eccentric couple in the Dominion from taking advantage of this circumstance the utmost dispatch is being used in correcting a blunder which furnishes another striking instance of the fallibility of State officials.

Some Swiss ladies have started a crusade against corsets, gloves and long skirts. One hundred of them have announced their determination to eschew the corset, wear gloves upon “ ceremonial occasions " only, and to have their dresses made a foot short of the ground. They are examples of the women who rush to ex-, tremes on every occasion, ignoring the motto of moderation. It is worse than useless to tell them than sensible women, with good taste, do not make hour-glasses of their waists now, nor squeeze their hands into gloves two or three sizes too small. Perhaps the resolution to wear abbreviated skirts is the most sensible of the three, as nothing looks worse than the sight of a long skirt draggling in the dust and mud, and gathering up all the dirt of the roads as it trails along. It may be sensibly argued that there is no advantage in wearing a long dress if half the time it has to be lifted off the ground.

Apropos of lifting the skirt, how few women really know how to do it! The majority clutch at a portion, and let the remaining part drag down in a most ungraceful manner, with the result that the whole appearance, to an observer in the rear, is most unsightly. Our French come out better than us in •this respect. A Frenchwoman, however plain, sallow, or old, is always graceful. IShe knows how to put on her clothes, and how to wear them, and is never guilty of idiosyncrasies of attire, because suitability to the occasion is the keynote of her toilette. It will be noticed that she invariably has her dresses made a trifle shorter at the back than front, and the effect is extremely chic, while it dispenses with the necessity of raising it out of the dirt. As showing what ladies are doing in the educational field in Victoria, it may be noted that at the annual examination of the University of Melbourne, out of twentythree students who passed in the first year Arts, eight were ladies ; second year Arts, four ladies out of twenty-five ; third year Arts, nine ladies out of a total of thirtyfour students. Two ladies passed in the first year in medicine, two in the third year, one in the fourth year, and one in the fifth year.

A Parisian journal declares that French women deserve the prize for queenly grace of carriage. The German woman steps heavily. Most women in other countries “travel," “prance," “roll or tramp about," as the case may be, but the French woman walks in the only correct manner. Peasant women in France, who carry burdens on their heads, are special types of grace in walking, and this exercise, using a book or a pillow, is specially recommended as a remedy for an ungraceful walk. Some women contend that their special gait is natural, like the colour of their eyes, and cannot be changed, but this is entirely a misconception of their own ability to improve their personal appearance. They seem to think that covering the distance is the one and only point to be gained by walking. If they could see themselves as they appear to others, any effort which could add a little grace and dignity to their method of walking would not be considered too much trouble. Beauty of face and figure is often almost entirely lost in an ugly walk.

Steps are being taken (says Woman) to erect a hotel in New York exclusively for women. It will be nine or ten stories in height. Russian, Roman and Turkish baths, a plunge, and manicure, hairdressing and chiropodist parlours will be situated in the basement. On the ground floor will be an assembly-room, committeeroom, reading-room, library, reception, cloak, club and lunch rooms. The other floor will contain studios and apartments of from one to three rooms. The rooms will be rented by the year, and it is expected that most of the women will provide their own furniture. The tenants will be well-to-do women, who want a pleasant home at the least possible cost. About £2 per week will cover the expenses of a room and board for one person. No rules will govern the tenants.

At least one woman in England, it is well known, holds a master mariner’s certificate, and there are probably others. This lady, who has passed all the examinations made compulsory by tho Board of Trade, is the Dowager Lady Clifford, widow of the late Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod, who died in 1892. Her ladyship sails her own yacht for many months of the year in the Mediterranean and the Solent, and, holding a master mariner’s certificate, is entitled to employ or dispense with the services of a captain at her own option.

A comparative test of the masculine and feminine mind has been made with rather carious results. Twenty-five women and twenty-five men of a psychological class were asked to write as quickly as possible 100 words chosen at random. Out of the 5000 words thus written there were only 1266 words which occurred but once in the lists, while 3,000 of the words were repetitions of 758 words. That the men seemed to have a wider range and origin*

ality of ideas was proved, because they wrote 746 of the words which occurred but once in the lists, while the women wrote only 520. Of articles of dress the men set down 129, while the women thought of 224, and the masculine freedom from culinary cares showed itself in the fact that they wrote only 5S articles of food, to 179 on the feminine lists.

A tourist just returned from Hungary was witness of the following curious scene at a village fair :—A woman was kneeling on the ground near a stall, uncoiffed, with her hair falling dotfn her back. Then a man, with a groat pair of scissors, took the waving tresses in his hand, and sheared them off close to the head, leaving only a lock at each temple. The deed was done in a few seconds, and the effect was horrible. It seemed that an abominable assault had been committed ; but this woman who had lost her hair was evidently not of the same mind, for she rose from the ground, gaily covered her bare scalp with her hat, and, after a feigned struggle, received a kiss from the shearer, who declared, with an ugly grin, that the embrace was needed to make her hair grow again. No money was paid, but the woman who was sheared was allowed to choose twelve yards of some cheap material trom the stall. Another young woman was only offered six yards for her hair, which she had carefully combed out before the bystanders, but she insisted on having seven yards. The dealer being obstinate, she put on her cap and walked away. This practice of hair-dealing in districts where life is too hard for the married woman to preserve an ornament which nature has given her when it can be exchanged for somethiug useful, explains the ease with which the better-favoured lady obtains her artificial tresses. But what a difference between the price originally paid for them and that paid by the eventual wearer I

The Queen always wears two special bracelets, no matter what other wrist ornaments she puts on. The one contains a miniature of the late- Prince Consort; in the other is inserted a portrait of the last great grandchild. Little Prince Albert of York and the Grand Duchess Olga of Russia were the two last claimants for the proud position, being born about the same time, but to which the honour has fallen is not yet public property.

Few courtships have been more romantic than that of Mr McKinley, the President of the United States. In the town where he and the lady who is now his wife resided, she was a teacher of a large Bible Class in a Presbyterian Church, and he the superintendent of an adjacent Sunday School. In going to their respective duties, they passed each other at a certain corner, and found it pleasant to stop occasionally and indulge in conversation concerning their work. This went on for a good many months, until one evermemorable Sunday afternoon he said to her when they met: “ I don’t like this separation every Sunday—you going one way and I another. Suppose after this we always go the same way. What do you think?" “ I think so too," was the answer, which gave to him one of the most beautiful wives and to her one of the most devoted husbands.

Hesba Stretton took the name of “ Hesba ” because it is formed by the initials of her five sisters ; and her surname from the village of Church Stretton, in Shropshire, where she resided and where her father was postmaster. It is at Ham Common that Hesba Stretton now lives, with her sister Elizabeth, within sight of Richmond Park. This sister it was who sent out “ Hesba’s " first story, which was accepted by the late Charles Dickens. The talented lady’s greatest success was “ Jessica’s First Prayer," which has been translated into Arabic, Cingalese, Japanese, Bulgarian, Czech, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French. The Emperor Alexander 11. decreed that copies of ‘.‘ Jessica’s First Prayer" should be placed in all the schools in Russia, but his successor not only revoked the order but commanded all copies found in his dominions to be burned. During the famine Miss Stretton collected the sum of L‘9oo, which she sent to the relief of the Russian peasants. Her real name is Sarah Smith.

The charities of the Baroness BurdettCoutts have been colossal ever since her twenty-third year, when, in company with Dickens, she visited some of the worst slums in London, and, as a result of these visits, turned many of the foul dens into model tenement houses. She offered a quarter of a million of money to the Gov* ernment for the benefit of destitute Irish* spent .£IOO,OOO in building the church of St. Stephen’s at Westminster, and employed numerous nurses, doctors and sanitary inspectors in the East End during the terrible cholera epidemic of 1867. General Gordon highly valued a pocketbook which the Baroness presented to him shostly before he left England on his mission to Khartoum in 1884.

Clara : “ Do you think he’s fond of her ?" Ethel: “It looks like it. He cleaned her bicycle yesterday." First Actress: “ Have you heard oj Miss Starr’s advertising dodge? " Second Actress: “ What is it?" First Actr6sa; “ She has had her bicycle stolen." Mrs K.: “ Cyrus, we need a new clock for the sitting-room." Mr K.: “ Can’t you wait till next month, Ootavia ? You? birthday comes then,"