NOTES FOR WOMEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18636, 18 August 1922, Page 8

NOTES FOR WOMEN.

MOTHERCRAFT TRAINING SOCIETY, SUCCESSFUL YEAR. THE “TRUBY KING SPIRIT.” (Fbom Ora Own Correspondent.) r LONDON, June 28. At tfce annual meeting of toe Mothercruft Training Society this week H.R.H. Princess Christian presided. The meeting was held in the Hon. Mrs R. N. Macdonald's residence. Lady Allen and other members of the Executive Committee were present, as well as a large number of lady > members of the society. In proposing the adoption of toe annual report summary of which was sent by a previous mail), Lady Dawson, of Penn, referred to the resignation of Sir Alexander Rijger as chairman of toe Executive Committee. Sir/ Alexander, she said, had not lost interest in the organisation, but he was chairman as well of the larger body, the Central Council for Infant and Child Welfare, and he had found it necessary, owing to the pressure of work, to give up one or the other chairmanship. Ho had always watched the interests of the Mothercraft Training Society on the Central Council, and by retaining tho chairmanship of that body pe would continue to do so. _ He would,'moreover, be ready to give his adI vice at any time it was needed. The Mims- , try of Health had decided to continue their subsidy—this year it was £lOls, £lO leas than the previous year. Lady Dawson referred to the need for further financial aid. The work was increasing. Only a few- days ago there were 55 out-patients in one day. The lease of the premises would expire at toe end of 1923, And they hoped they would be in a positiop to obtain a house in the same district frith a suitable garden. She appealed; for further subscriptions even in small amounts, but more particularly for the help of everyone to procure additional members. Mr Dennis Eadie had promised a matinee performance of “Milestones” in . aid of the society, and the executive hoped to arrange for this some time in SeptemDr R. C. Jeweebury, the honorary medical director, seconded the resolution. Their object,, he said, was to provide an opportunity of education to, all those who were interested in what wais known as mothercraft —education for the nurse, for the doctors, and for the mother herself. Secondly, the work was. to give the children the best chance of a healthy life. By the methods toe society taught they maintained that the children were being properly fed and were placed 1 in the best position to start their fives aiicl to resist disease. Since Dr Truby King started the society nearly four years age they had made satisfactory progress, and as proof of that their out-patients for toe, period covered by. the report had numbered 5523, end of these 609 had been new oases. The average monthly out-patient attendance had been 207, as against 101 for toe previous year. In order to cater for «toe increase of- out-patients, they had had to set* apart three days in the week instead of two. The society .had particularly developed its training school for nurses, " and the waiting list of nurses, anxious to train was a very long one.' Those who had experience in getting nurses for sick children —nurses with special knowledge —would appreciate the work this training school was doing. It was exceedingly .difficult in private oases where , babies were ill to, get nurses with special knowledge. The brdinary trained nurse was .practically useless. Students who had taken the whole course ..numbered 112, and of these 22 had been • Certificated nurses, and 11 had been fully-trained midwives. The methods which Dr Truby King laid down had been very rigidly adher'd to. * They had not attempted to change anything in that way. There was almost unlimited scope in the work which the society was doing. They were very glad toe Ministry of Health had made their grant but they were copjipf to a critical period, and they •might find it difficult to obtain satisfactory premises unless the funds were fortocommg. Dr Jewesbury finally paid a high tribute to the work of the Matron (Miss Liddiard), and to Sisters Hansard and Read. He was quite sure, he said, that but for their efforts they would not have made such satisfactory progress. Lady Dawson, Lady Victoria Braithwaite, Miss French, and Mr F. R. Peacock were xe-eleoted members of the Executive Com- ■ mittee. S. Fairbaim, Honorary Consulting iPhyitfiyaii, proposed a vote of thanks to Princess Christian for the interest she took / in toe work of tho society and for presiding at the meeting. He referred to Dr Truby Kind’s methods. Dr Truby King, he said, bad collected all that was best from the Continent and elsewhere. The basis of his system was to work on the most natural lines—that was breast feeding. When that waS impossible, he has provided a substitute which was the nearest possible to natural, feeding. He was glad to say that this principle had Jived as the spirit of the Mothercraft Training Society. It was Dr Truby King who .inspired all the great work which was done by toe society. At the conclusion of the meeting Mrs Macdonald provided afternoon tea for all who were present. WAISTS. By Lady de Frece (“Vesta Tilley”) in the Evening News. There was a time, and not so many years ago, when women not only boasted waists, but were proud of them. Sometimes pride led to over-emphasis and toe evils of tightlacing, but sensible women realised the possibilities of natural rather than artificial shapeliness, and wore the clothes that dispayed it to advantage. Of late the waist has declined, literally and figuratively, and to-day it seems to have established itself somewhere in the neighbourhood of the hips. For a certain class of wo ,- 'an, the woman whose possessions do mot in iude anything that might even by a etrotc-i of imagination be termed a figure, too present convention has its uses, and the general tendency towards masculinity in the feminine sex is one that toe figureless will continue to applaud. Its association with very short skirts and on exhibition of feet and ankles that would often be better implied than expressed, is too familiar and unpleasant to call for comj meat. Middle-age may have acquired a [ certain ease, but it has lost a very definite, dignity, and: it is astonishing to find women ■whq can assert unchallenged claim to a figure, sacrificing ’ that gift in support of fashion’s foolish decree. This is an odd and most surprising form of charity. Paris, the arbiter of fashion, is growing a little alarmed, and the Chipnique do Lon- ( dres has 'been moved of late to an expression of its high disapproval. I am not greatly concerned with the Vagaries of fashion; indeed, I am emphatically an advocate of freedom- in dress, but it is, impossible to appllaud toe vogue that ShaejaJlawed skirte to run away and carry their old-time wearers with them into a mew and ugly mode. I think that tho woman with a figure must always resent a fashion that breathes defiance to every artistic impulse. Whenever we consider groat statuary or notable painting, we realise that woman has always owed a part of her beauty to r session of a waist in the right place, we" .turn to tho leading artists from the beginning of the Umbrian school down to toe leading portrait painters of our own time, we small realise that you cannot associate* a: degenerate waist with a satisfying type of^beouty. We have not yet discovered an effective substitute for the long skirt with its flowing lines and definite appeal to the aesthetic Bonap; it enabled a certain balance, now lostoto be preserved. Who, for ex ample, could wear toe picture hat with a modem costhme, and who would deny that the ' pictute hat has lent enduring grace to a noble portrait. Let us grant that on some occasions and for Certain open-air puimrito, women may emulate men. - Then the figureless folk may idea their place by toe side of their more fortunate sisters, but there are occasions, full-dress occasions let us call them, when toe .natural lines roust b© followed, when the waist should be relegated to its proper place, when the ample skirt should lend its grace and dignity to the ensemble, and tho flowing plumes of tho ostrich, plumes that toe invest conscientious woman may wear , -without a qualm, Should complete) the piot§|e. Miss Agnes MaoPhail. toe only "'woman M.H, ) in Canada, has established what she ;■ (hopes will bo a precedent in Canadian political'- Two years ago toe sessional grant r nuufe to members o£ Parliament was in- - cpeajgd from £550 to £BBO. Miss MaoPhail, jwheobas Just concluded her first session in tiuriMTonse, has returned the extra £330, although -with Scotch caution she first dej, dnoiep £l3 10s for the income tax payable !.y oo toat sum “We should practise eoonorrijCl said Miss MaoPhail, “as well as f, frelai'fc”

LADY RHONDDA BARRED FROM THE HOUSE OF LORDS. PEERESSES’ DISQUALIFICATIONS. (From Ora Own Correspondent.) LONDON, June 28. Reasoned opinions were given yesterday for and against toe dismissal of Lady Rhondda’s daim under the Sex Disqualification Removal Act, to take her seat in the House of Lords. It will be remembered that the Committee of Privileges first reported in favour, but later reversed its decision. After dealing at great length with statutes and standing orders, the Lord Chancellor said that upon a personal perusal of the words in Lady Rhondda’s patent it was clear that according to the ordinary principles of construction, and apart altogether from such disqualifications ns were imposed bv the com mob law, she was incapable of receiving a writ by reason of the terms of the patent itself. The patent conferred a peerage dignity upon Viscount Rhondda, and after his decease, in the events which had happened, upon the petitioner* with remainder after her decease ,to her heirs male; but when it came to define tho incidents of the dignity so conferred it distinguished between _ Viscount Rhondda and those males who might hereafter hold the dignity on the one hand, and Viscountess on the other, giving to the former, and by silence denying to tho latter the right to a seat place, and voice. TTie Lord Chancellor said the doctrine that the Bang, having created a peer, could not direct that he should not be summoned to Parliament, had become settled by constitutional law in the course of the seventeenth century, but, as was so often the case, it represented not in truth toe statement of a legal doctrine but the result of a constitutional struggle. _ “The case is not one of suspension of a right or abeyance of an activity?” said tho Lord Chancellor. “Tho holder of a peerage dignity who is a minor is not, entitled to receive a writ, but he may grow up and will then become so entitled. A felon or a bankrupt-is not entitled to, receive a writ, but a felon may receive a pardon and a bankrupt his discharge. A female must remain a female till she dies.” He had no difficulty upon the construction of the statute alone in reporting to the House against the petitioner in this case. It was sufficient to say _ that the Legislature, in dealing with this matter, could not be taken to have departed from the usage of centuries or to have employed such loose and ambiguous words to carry out so momentous a revolution in the constitution of that House. He was content to lias© his judgment on this alone, though he had in an earlier portion of his speech dealt fully with the points arising upon the documents creating the peerage and upon the nature of the peerage dignity itself, because they were elaborately argued at tho Bar, were of great historical interest, and seemed to him also to be fatal to the petitioner’s claim. He wished to make it ydear in expressing this view that ho should hold the same opinion, whether Lady Rhondda sat under a patent or under a writ. Lord Haldane had toe misfortune to find himself unable to agree with the conclusions come to about this claim by the majority of the committee. It appeared to him to be impossible to say that the, removal of ( the sex disqualification they had been considering: * was not within the purpose of the words of. the Act. PANNIER DRESSES. FRENCH AND SPANISH FASHIONS^. The basket on the hip is as classic (writes a Paris correspondent of the Manchester Guardian) as is the pitcher on the shoulder, for which reason perhaps the pannier never disappears entirely. The student of lines, moreover, knows the charm of the neck which springs like a flower from amid a big collar, or toe waist which springs from amid the waves of silk constituting the pannier. The bustle itself was but the pannier geographically misplaced which mistake gave it a suggestion of the ridiculous. Tho shepherdess with the pannier remains eternally elegant and rural together; a shepherdess with a bustle is unthinkable. And so the pannier returns again and again —now with the youthfulness and archness of the French prototype, now with the dignity and stateliness of the Spanish. Many of the Spanish pannier dresses are made of very beautiful lace. Nor is there any kind dress better suited to display its patterns?" Lace is being everywhere sought by the great dressmakers, especially black Spanish lace, the price of which has increased accordingly. Lucile has a black lace dress with the long Spanish bodice and too low full tips, which suggest a Spanish Infanta, and makes the short or even the longer tunic dress look trivial. In the interests of truth it must lie admitted that tunio dresses can also make th Spanish dresses look like toilet tables, but such characteristics are, after all, lent, chiefly by the wearers of either. The Spanish dress was worn with a large black hat, and it demands slow and stately movement. The French pamrier dresses strike quite another note. They are unmitigatedly charming, and they convey the 1 impression of being witty. Made of taffetas, they have a trinmess and an inability ever to lose their shape, which is most reassuring. And there is no doubt that a certain firmness of shape is very pleasant after the determined shapelessness of tho majority of clothes. A black taffetas dress with French panniers, radiating like gate spikes, had a fold-over bodice, loose at the side, and clinched by a firm three-inch belt. The collar, the line of the bodice fold, and the wide cuffs of the elbow sleeves were finished with beautiful embroidered muslin in an old shade of cream. A cinnamon-brown taffetas with a bateau neck, had long, close-fitting sleeves, which carried out the tunic effect. It was finished in the same way at (he waist, but the folds of tho pannier were pulled across each other from one side to the other and concentrated in bunches rather low down on the skirt. It thus gave the best of both worlds—the spring N pf the pannier and the natural effect of the' tunic bodice. Belts and girdles have learnt to accommodate themselves to too variety of folds with which they have to contend. There is no longer question of a uniform girdle which passes straitly round tho high or low waist, as the case, may be. The girdle has to conform to the general scheme of tho dress, and, as this Is often very complicated, the girdle has to be complicated as well. Thus in a white lace dress worn over bjack satin warmth was given by means of a red girdle and toned down by the working of a girdle in leaves of gold. The girdle mode a rather flat “S” over th© front of the dress and terminated in black chiffon strings frhich were tied very long down behind and harmonised the whole colour scheme. In some cases no fewer than four sashes are worn—one at each comer, so to speak. Obviously, such a multiplicity of sashes does not play quite the same role as does one only. Usually'they are made of the material of the dress, or crepe inarocain, satin, what not; often they are edged with heavy and long fringe to give them weight, and they hang so straightlv that, but for the fact that they are usually rather longer than the skirt, they might almost be taken for part of its folds. Tho fashion of the sash tends to .give a pretty complexity of line. Thus with a draped skirt, in which the drapery hangs, as it were, between the two straight lines of the sashes, there is something of th© light effect of a rope swing, curving betweenltwo poets. The skirt can similarly be . decorated by the girdle, which drops, Eastern fashion, straight down the front from a central ornament very elaborately worked. This kind of girdle, pf which the lines are carefully studied, is chiefly used for the softer materials, such as chiffon or georgette At the Parish Church, Famham Royal. Bucks, early in fhe morning of June 29 (writes our London correspondent), the wedding took place pf Mr Kendall R. J. Saxon (Nelson) to Miss Frances Constance Smyth, daughter of the Rev. A. W. Smyth and Mrs Smyth, of Monks Kirby, near Rugby. Only near relatives were present. There was no bridesmaid, and ns the bridegroom’s Nelson friend and college fellow student, Mr H. W. Sadlier, was unable to bo present, there was no brat man. The wedding took place from Cherry Tree House, the residence of Dr A. J. Wright (undo of the" bride). Those present ineluded the _ bride’s Parents, the Misses Fletcher, Miss Rourdillon. Mrs Verschoyle. Mrs 15. S. Woods, and relatives. Mr and Mrs Saxon are enjoying a short holiday on the North Devon coast Iret.ween Minehead and Lynten. They will sail for New Zealand on July 20 bv the Remuera. On arrival Mr Saxon will take up his duties at Nelson College, haring now concluded his course at Emmanuel, Cambridge, where he has made science his special study. Al Rugger he will ho much missed bv the University, which he has brilliantly irepre- - eon ted on many occasions. |