LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 1933, 25 February 1892, Page 42

LADIES' GOSSIP.

— Here are some Parisian novelties, for use and ornament, that are much en evidence this winter: — Little sprays of marguerites in diamonds, the flowers mounted in silver and gold on the same spray ; fancy hooks for the corset, some of the simplest, kinds in gold or nickel silver, while some are veritable jewels of precious metal, studded with gems ; little bags, to hang on the arm, and carry the prayer book or breviary, the bag of eld Italian embroidery, and its suspenders of antique galou. Another favourite trifle is a little 2>orle bonheur, or charm, made of a real sou, with a hole pierced in it, and some tiay little device in diamonds set in the aperture — a star, a spade, a club (of cards), or something of the kind, but hardly bigger than the head of a large pin. This lucky charm is the rage for ladies this winter. Auother novelty is for the wearers of mourning. Instead of wearing jet brooches, and the like sable ornaments, the "very latest" in Paris is to select one's simplest-looking articles of jewell-jryand veil them in crape ! They may be large, but must be of plain design ; lockets, thusdraped and hung round the neck with a band of crape, an especially chic, and should contain the portrait, hair, or some other memento of the person deceased.

— Mrs Rupperr, the London "skin specialist," lectured in the Princess' Theatre, London, on the 15th December, to a large audience, on "Women without cosmetics.' The stage was loaded with flowers, banks of flowers adorned the walls, and the orchestra played selections from " Cleopatra." Mrs Ruppert was dressed in a pale peach brocade evening gown with a large gold order on the bodice. Out of every 100 women, she averred, 75 used cosmetics — all of them injurious. Wrinkles, she declared, were owing to facial movement; the pallid, statuesque women escaped them best, but laughing and smiling brought them about. By means of astringent washes bagginess beneath the eyes could be eradicated. The actual wrinkles could not be so dispelled. Red noses are due to too much blood on the surface, and need the opening of the pores. Mrs Ruppert does not advocate massage for the face; she considers it is apt to make the skin flabby. Mr 3 Ruppert requested the audience to send her questions through the ushars, which she would answer, and in tha pause many beautiful bouquets were presented to her. The queries came in quickly. She declared herself favourable to a vegetableVliet, but unable to make a woman of 45 look like a woman of 25, though she promised to give the questioner the healthy complexion of 15. She objects to the use of greases for the face, filling up the pores of the skin, which needs to be firm while soft, prescribes cold water to the face in preference to hot, and soap to be used once, at night, in a good lather, well washed off, and the (ace to be. then rubbed briskly with a chamois leather. In the treatment of the hair she discards dyes or bleaching ; the scalp should be kept clean, the hair cut at the split ends only, and a tonic appUed occasionally — bay rum and salt are good combined. She enjoins on women to walk with an elastic step, and to maintain a dignity of carriage.

— It is not generally known that at the end of every year the English Quaen's household expenses are audited and checked, and that copies of them are printed, with a view to future reference. One of these having fallen into my hands, I herewith append a few facts and items which may interest more humble people. The royal tea, which is always bought at a quaint, old-fashioned shop in Pall Mall, and has been during her five predecessors' reigns, costs 53 7^d per lb, and was Cor a long time known a 9 Earl Grey's mixture, he having recommended the present brand to her Majesty. When she gives a dinner, fish to the extent of LSO is ordered, but for an ordinary dinner three kinds of fish are put on the table, whiting being almost invariably one of them. A sirloin of beef is cooked every night, and is put on the sideboard cold for the next day's lunch. The Queen seeme, in this instance, much like our (American) selve3 ; and the cheese, of which there are always six or seven kinds, is invariably obtained from one particular firm. The Queen takes after her dinner one water biscuit and one piece of Cheddar ; the Prince o? Wales eats a piece of Gorgonzola with a crust of household bread. The tea, as well as the cheese and the royal bed, are invariably taken with the Queen* wherever she goes. Her Majesty's wine, which is well known to be incomparable, is always kept in the cellars of St. James' Palace, and is sent in basketfuls of 3doz to wherever she may be, though this is more for the guests and the household than herselF, as her Majesty when alone drinks very weak whisky and water with her meals, by the doctor's orders. At banquets, however, she takes two glasses of Burgundy. The clerk of the kitchen, who always carves, receives L7OO per annum, the oltef the same, and tho two confectioners, who attend to all the pastry, jellies, fruit?, ko , get L3OO and L 250 respectively.

— The most extraordinary precautions are taken in Spain to provide for the safety of the Sovereign at nighr. His slumbers are watched throughout the night by the Monteros de Espinosa, a body of men who for 400 years have enjoyed the exclusive privilege of guarding their royal master or mistress from sunset to sunrise. They are bound by tradition to be natives of the town of Espinosa, and to have served with honour in the army. They lock the palace gates with much ceremony and solemnity at midnight, and open them again at 7 o'clock in the morning. Their fidelity to the person of the Sovereign does not admit of question, — The Archduchess Louise of Tuscany, whose marriage recently attracted some attention, has been very simply educated at Salzburg, where the Grand Ducal court ia located. Her visits to Vienna have been few and far between, and her mamage is

actually her first ical iuiroOuotiuii to society. The Archduchess, who may one day be Queen of Saxony, is very much liko an English girl in appearance— rather tall, with well-rounded figure, good colour, capital eyes, and cheeks dimpled like those of a country beauty. Not only is tbe Archduchess extremely pretty, but of a robust health that most princesses would envy; her father brought her up in a very retired way at Salzburg, and imbued her with his own love of mountain climbing, hunting, and all sorts of bodily exercise. When she was hardly in her teens she used to go out alone to follow the pleasures of the chase on the neighbouring Alpine heights ; and might be seen sometimes returning proudly with a ohamois on her shoulders, which she had killed and choose to carry home herself ! Nevertheless, she is anything but a hoyden, in spite of this rather masculine prowess ; she is well read and very accomplished, and paints more than commonly well

The quaint old Austrian custom of a bride being cast off, as it were, by her countrymen when she takes to herself a foreign husband, was an interesting feature of the above marriage. The Archduchess entered the church followed by a long train of royal and noble Austrian ladies. They stood ia a semicircle around her until the moment the bridegroom placed the ring upon her finger; they then turned and left her, for she was no longer a countrywoman, of theirs. For a moment the Princess stood alone — unattended, at least; then, a number of Saxon ladies ranged themselves behind her; she had become a S ixon.

At the marriage of Marie Antoinette, this custom, which in her case was observed only on the French frontier, had a pathetic denoument. When the Austrian ladie3 attempted to leave the new Dauphiness of Franse, she refused to be left; and, as if foreseeing |what her fate would be in her adopted country, clung to them, and, with convulsive sobs, entreated them to take her back to Austria again. Actual force had to be used to separate her from her attendants. — In some English families it h the custom to put the maids in a kind of livery, which is provided by the mistress. In 3ome houses the c ilouw of the livery are chosen ; for example, in one house the maidservant! waited at tails in their mastei's colours — dark blue and canary. The dress was dark blue faced clotb, made short in the " housemaid " style, with habit bodice, the tiny basques at the back lined with the canary colour. The bodice was plain, with revers of blue velveteen, and a small V-shaped vest of the lemon colour, the large French muslin aprons having the bibs fastened with the plated livery buttons made as brooches. Plain white caps. Dark blue serges in winter, navy blue print in summer for morning. Another lady, whose husband has an appointment at a military hospital, dresses her maids for the afternoon in scarlet dresses, with white caps and aprons

— A lady lying sick at Brighton in 1871 anxiously thought of the sick in homes and hospitals, with whom she was accustomed to spend much of her time. During a night of wakefulness and suffering the thought of a letter to each suddenly occurred to her, and it was this thought which has since expanded with so much success into thn Christmas Letter Mission, whose work ia spread not only over the whole of the United Kingdom, but has also extended almost all over the world. Tbe first distribution was initiated on a wet and stormy night, when round the long dining room table in the house of a Brighton clergyman a little company was gathered, composed chiefly of such members of one of the Bible classes as could give an evening hour to the work in the busy week preceding Christmas. Some hundreds of printed letters, envelopes, and Christmas cards or leaflets were laid in piles on the table, and the workers were grouped round these in parties of fivefolding, placing in envelopes, inclosing cards, sealing, tying up in parcels of 20. On awaking on Christmas morning each patient in t*ie various wards of the institutions to which the letters had been sent found lying on his pillow a letter addressed " A Christmas Letter lor You," and great was the pleasure which this surprise occasioned. The work spread from year to year, and when it was in 1877 placed on a basis of central organisation, the enterprise became a vast SUCC3SS. In 1879 no fewer than 150,000 letters were'distributed in England. In 1890 about 600,000 letters and text cards in the Ecglish language were distributed, 40,000 more in America, wlrle the Welsh and foreign distributions amounted to over 40,000 also. The headquarters of ths Christmas Letter Mission are in London, and the whole of its affairs are directed by Miss E. Steele Elliott, a daughter of the clergyman at whose parsonage 1 he movement was inaugurated 20 years ago.

— Now that his new crown is at last completed, the indefatigable Kaiser has decided to have a brand new throne put in hand. The fiwt Prussian King, Frederick I, had a magnificent one, consisting of heavy gold and silver frames and decorations and red velvet upholstery. But during tbe Napoleonic invasion of Prussia early in this century the precious metil part of the throne was melted down, and there are now in existence only two smaller chairs of State, of much less value, which used to stand on the right and left of the throne. The Kaiser is having designs prepared on his own instructions, and something very imposing in thrones may be expect el. — The death of the Earl of Bantry so young is particularly sac), Lt after a misspent youth it has only been sinca hia marriage that he settled down and began to appreciate the serious and tranquil joys of domestic life, and the responsibilities of hia social position. Young, amiable, and goodlooking when he, as Viscount Berehaven, first found himself in London, he very shortly got drawn into a most pernicious coterie. Tuif hangers-on, well-born toadie.B, and spongers and the like — 311 birds of prey — at once marked him for their own. Although he had one of the most able of Oxford tutor?, nothing could be done with him ; he broke the traces, played the fool, and one fine moraing enlisted in the 2nd Life Guards (then lying at Windsor) under his family name of White ! It was, as a matter ,of fact, far better fcr Berebaven to be grooming his charger, learning his drill, and cleaning his kit quietly at the Spital Barracks than lounging about London with th.6 blacklegs and drunkards he bad

formerly made his associates. The follies of poor young Berehaven so materially affected his health that he was advised to take a long journey, which he aid ; and although this trip to tbe Antipodes and elsewhere did not perhaps do his physical health all the good that had been anticipated, ifc certainly greatly ameliorated his moral condition, opened his eyes, enabled him to cast off bis former boon companions and hangers-on, and on his return began a new life, marrying, and, as we have said, settling down. One of his sisters married the great brewer, Lord Ardilaun (Guinness), and another Lord Ferrers. The Earl of Bantry was the owner of about 70,000 acres in the county of Cork. The grandfather cf the late earl obtained a peerage for his exertions in repelling the French invasion at Bantry Bay about a century ago.