LADIES’ GOSSIP

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1536, 7 August 1901, Page 21

LADIES’ GOSSIP

The housewives of Eastern Canada find the domestic servant difficulty as acute as we do here. As industries opejj. up new employments for women the supply utterly fails to meet the demand for help. So Chinese have been employed in many Toronto houses lately, and hotel-keepers find the Celestial an excellent substitute for the old-fashioned chambermaid. One prominent hotel manager in Toronto has quite made up his mind to the revolution.

Bangle charms have added use to their ornamentation, and the odd-shapped attachments are giving place to simpler pendants. A little golden ball will hold a goodly pinch of sachet powder, and a flat coin-shaped locket of chased gold tells of an old-time vinaigrette. Many of these golden balls are studded with jewel set points, alternate points emitting the fragrant odour of a delicate perfume. Hanging from the same bangle un the arm of an elegante will be a tambourine or a tiny steering wheel with a dainty miniature painted upon one side of it; a monogram or some message from the giver appearing on the other side. * * * * *

The golden heart slung upon a long chain about the neck of the fashion leaders and followers a year or two ago was the forerunner of the present craze for miniatures, old or new, set in a circlet of pearls or a frame of gold. *

The bead chains with tasselled ends made up as they are of oddly assorted beads suggest the ransacking of ancient jewel cases, wherein are stored the hitherto useless treasures of a grandmother's ornaments.

Parisiennes are more than ever adopting new models in the way of tea gowns. As the weather becomes warmer real elegantes wear their tea gowns very lowin the neck and with short sleeves to the elbows. Tea gowns built entirely of lace are most popular, and though very expensive are remarkably smart. One of Venetian point in Callot colour, which is half yellow and Jialf red in tint, though, of coarse, very "pale in tone. This particular gown, cut tight - fitting at the back and at the sides, fell quite straight in front. It had a medium-sized train, and was mads up over an under-dress of acrordeon pleated mousseline de soie. The sleeves, pagoda-shaped and unlined, were slit up from the lower edge to the elbow and edged around with broad Irish insertion a tone lighter than the rest of the drees. The under sleeves were of cream kilted chiffon, their fulness being caught by a white satin band at the wrist. A deep frill of mousseline de soie fell over the hand.

Table decorations change with the season, and the period of house boat dinners of the half-past nine o’clock variety have sp.cial.ties not enjoyed at residences on terra firma. Deck chairs of paper and wouid make an excellent background for the list of good things to be enjoyed when tiie travelling gong has sounded, miniature tents on cricket fields flying special col urs, a grandstand, the boy on a dinghy holding out the news of the evening, are all attractive menu cards, and the guest's name finds itself on tiny life belts, fishes, scoring-boards, flags, etc.

An amusing incident is • recorded as having happened recently at the Royal Academy. A lady was engaged in a conversation with an artist friend, when she was heard to say, "I like your pictures so much, aud I would dearly love to be an artist. Do tell me the secret how to do it." "Most willingly, madame/’ replied the painter courteously. "You have only to select the right colours and put them on the right place "Thank you," said the lady effusively; "I shall commence at once!" * * * * *

According - to a note-writer in a Sabbath paper: . "Sarah Bernhardt still appeals immensely to fashion. She is apt to drive the ordinary playgoer into fraut.c enthusiasm, for with all her faults she is, as t>lie ever was, a great actress in the most consummate sense of the word. She knows her business as perhaps no one has known it before her. She measures her effects with the precision of a railway time-table/’

According to American news the people of Met.uohen, N.J., are greatly excited over a sensational episode in which Dr Charles Freeman, the fiance of Miss Mary E. Willkins, the well-known novelist, wa3 the chief figure. With a stone he smashed a photographer's frame in the Metuclien Post Office, because it contained a picture of himself. The frame, which belonged to a photographer of New Brunswick, contained, the story goes, a number of pictures of prominent persons, among them that of Dr Freeman. Having smashed the glass, he took out his photograph and tore it into bits and threw it away. While the crowd gazed at him in wonder and amazement Dr Freeman walked away. The photographer has since received this letter from Dr. Freeman:—Sir,—What do you mean by using my photograph to advertise your business ? Such impudence is astounding. If every photograph of mine is not taken down within three days I shall instruct my lawyer to begin an action against you. Your peculiar idea of business ethics will compel me to a’dvise my friends not to patronise you.—Yours, C. M. FREEMAN.

Cynics will say that there are British lady-novelists who would not care for so modest and retiring a character as fiancs or spouse. *** . * *

So fond are Russian women of smoking

that tlie Czar’s Minister of the Interior has ordered fhe railway officials in the empire to provide passenger trains with smoking compartments for their use. It is said that nearly all married women in Russia smoke -cigarettes, and that the habit has begun to obtain largely among the unmarried, with the result that smoking carriages are now as much of a necessity for travelling Russian woman as for men.

Bad news for Angelina. According to a Paris correspondent, science has proved that moonlight is ‘'more fatal" to the complexion than the sun in his splendor. Can the trysts of romance, then, be ever kept again when Luna, as the poets will call her, is serene, but, as it proves, damgerous, in the skies? Love laughs, we know, at locksmiths and the like, but will love laugh at spoiled complexions? "Moonshades," indeed, are now provided, "little moonshades made of a double thickness of mousseline de soie with a light fringe." These are "indispensable for late river parties," and haply they will serve on lover's strolls, but one is doubtful.

A lady traveller, who has returned from the new goldfields of Alaska, says that a woman is quite safe from insult amongst the rough miners, but one has to be careful not to get shot during the constant disputes as to claims.