NOTES FOR WOMEN

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7025, 13 January 1910, Page 7

NOTES FOR WOMEN

FEOU OUE SPECIAL COEEESPONDENT. LONDON. December 3. THE KAISER’S HORROR. The Kaiser is terrified--.of .jniorohos, and, whenever he. travels, an apparatus! for disinfecting books, magazines, and, papers, accompanies him. His fear grows worse with time, for now_ ho will not handle even a new book until it has been disinfected. | , - FORBIDDEN COLOURS. ' : The reign of the suffragettes has had a distinct bearing upon shoppers, according to ..a Regent, street firm, that declares that if tlie suffragette colours, in combination, .were offered to a woman of good breeding, considerable damage would be done to trade. It is certainly -true that many women have an aversion . to appearing in suffragette colours, and one instance of this appeared in-.a morning paper’s correspondence. A,man wrote; “I went with) ray wife to choose a hat, but when tow ing one on she suddenly)laid “it aside] with an .exclamation of disapproval. I, being a .mere man, could not see that itj ■was less becoming than some of the, others. '

“Wear ‘Wear suffragette colours!’ she) exclaimed, in answer to my query. ‘No, thank you !■’

“I find that my wife is not alone in this aversion to donning tho outward sign of the inward desire for a Parliamentary vote.” VEGETABLES' AS FLOWERS.

It is” not generally known, perhaps, that capers are really the unopened flowers of a shrub, like a bramble, that grows on the .shores of the Mediterranean Sea, The-filant boars beautiful pinkish white flowers with long tassels' of stamens and tho tondorest of the buds form tbo finest capers. Cloves are the -immature., blossoms of a plant of the myrtle kind, which grows) in the Molueae. The-plaut is an ever-, green and grows (sometimes to a height; of forty’feet. The buds, when gathered, are bright red in colour, and the clove is .a sort of kernel in the,.unexpanded blossom. In China the dried leaves of a lily are used as a relish with -pork. SALADS AND SOAP AND WATER.

Speaking of tho new 'famous Professor Metclimikoif and.his microbe theories, a weekly paper publishes the following: "There has been a good deal of talk about dangerous Industries. We have been asked to admire tho miner, in that ho carries his life momentarily in his hands; " And wo do admire him. But a cursory reading of .the newspapers and magazines has convinced us that- the miner is not the only hero. By descending into the bowels of the earth he manages to escape the perils that hover round the unconscious head of the man and woman in the street. Talk of perils! In one week we have learned that alcohol is deadly, that mineral waters aro poisonous, .that tea. coffee, and cocoa are destructive of the nerves, that malicious microbes still lurk in the

most highly-filtered water, that most foods arc bud for us, and that clothes are -the cause of short lito and neurasthenia* , ~ . “Tho microbe is called the porteus, and his favourite residence is on apples and other fruits, salads, ana the nna of cheese; The professor assures tis, however, that tho proteus can bo killed. The way to do it is to wash the hand 'with soap and not dry them, and then to plunge your fruit, salad, and cheese in soapy water, Tho proteus, ho does not like soapy water. And if we may bo permitted to say so, we emphatically agree with tho protons. Anyhow, *it is rather late in the day to warn mankind analyst apples,. Tho mischief is done I” A NEW AND INDESCRIBABLE SENSATION. , Miss Gertrude Bacon, in "All About Aeroplanes and Aviation" in/'Pearsons Magazine/* says that to describe the sensation of Right needs now adjectives, the sensation itself being; entirely mew She flew at Rheims with M. Sommer. When the aeroplane was once off tho ground there came into the motion "a thing—now. unimaginable, Indescribable . . . , tho embodiment of delicious dreams, the realisation of longing hopes, tho thing that mankind has sighed and laboured for all these thousand years—flight, real flight!" FROM "LONDON OPINION/' A children's branch of the Women's Aerial L'eaguo is_ to be instituted. e fear the nursemaid, who is used to dalliance in. tho park, will not welcome the aoropram. „ \ THE FIRST PAN. In.Mr H. W. Rhcad's "History .of the Fan" we find an incident alluded to that is, supposed to have led to .the invention of the first folding fan. A Japanese fanmaker, who lived near Kyoto, was one night subjected to much abuse from his wife, because, on a vampire flying into the room, he did not immediately get up and throw it out. There was a light in tho room, and going near it, the little beast burned itself and fell to the floor. Tho Jap picked it un. and it is said that the method of ‘the bat in opening its wings suggested the folding fan that he afterwards invented. WESTMINSTER ABBEY—(By Francis ' Bond). An interesting list of rules by which the lives of the old'monks were govern-v od in Westminster Cloisters is quoted from Abbot' Ware's "Customary," "which gives detailed directions as to the behaviour of tho monks in the dormitory." Hero, as everywhere in the monastery, the regulations seem at first sight vcxatiously minute and exacting, but it must bo remembered that the monks had to live crowded together both by day and night all their lives; and it was absolutely necessary, that none should he allowed to bo a nuisance to his neighbours even in the smallest things: .small causes of offence, constantly repeated. are quite as exasperating as grave ones. Minute regulations and prompt, cheerful, and implicit obedience, were indispensable in a mediaeval monastery.- So Abbot Waro very properly gives precise directions when the monks shall go to bed, and when they shall rise; how that a sleepy man i-s not to be awakened with, a sudden shock; what they shall wear in bed, and what they shall not wear; how they eliall keep their feet inside the bed; that they shall sav their prayers, and what prayers they shall say; what is to be done in case of fir© and flood; how that those who snore shall sleep apart from the rest; how often tho straw in their mattresses is to be changed, and other things too numerous to mention.