LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2205, 4 June 1896, Page 43

LADIES' GOSSIP.

'• ' One of the last of the old personal aetv vants and attendants of Qaeen Victoria recently died in Quebec, where he had reiided for -the last 61 years. His name was .Edward Ltttlejohn, and he was the lame ago as his royal mistress, having been, born in Devonshire in 1819. -While a boy at achool his qaiok intelligence and handsome features attracted the notice of the Queen's mother, the then Duchess of Kent, who made him her page. It soon beoame his duty to waib upon the little Princess Victoria, and he was for some years her personal attendant whenever she went out driving or riding from Kensington Palace. ' .' Sargenfri, whioh means in Danish 4 ' free from oare," is the charming name of the country house where Prince Oarl will lead his future bride, pretty Princess Maud o! Wales. With each of the royal residences in Denmark Princess Maud is as intimately acquainted as with her own homes in Eng* land. A capital rider, she always leads the gallop down the beautiful shady drives of the parks. A. light and. graceful skater, she shows herself an apt and ready pupil of heir Danish cousins, who have ice at their disposal for one-half the year, and when summer rnles, the little pleasure boats in the buy give her plenty of opportunity of showing how deftly she can manage a sail and an oar. • . • A correspondent writes to Woman t^r "A good story is told of a certain popular 'Princess who 1 is just now muoh before the public eye. Her Royal Highness has a repo> tation for fastidiousness, and she could nob finish dressing one day before a certain pair of shoes which had been ordered were forthcoming. Alasl the tradesman was laggard, and the Princess wandered disconsolately about for the want of the missing footgear, Her husband came on the scene by-and-bye, and lie suggested wearing an old pair. One by one the discarded bottinet were turned ont, looked at, and rejeoted, until at feat 16 pairs of boots and shoes in various condition? were set ont in dejeoted rows before .their royal mistress, who, amazed and annoyed, could not help exclaiming, ' A Queen's daughter, and not a ; shoe to wear I' It was then that the humour of the. situation struct? the royal lady's consort, who has a very pretty wit, and who is besides very clever with his pencil. He drew a rapid sketch of the Princess sitting forlorn, surrounded by a serried army of failures in leather, and . underneath it ran the legend, 'A Queen's daughter, and not a shoe to wear I ' This he plaoed on the Princess's mantelpiece. When* ever she caught sight of the sketch, her Royal Highness, who is the soul of. good, nature, burst into hearty laughter, and the situation was saved." * . ■ The lateat fad in our smartest Bociety, says a Home paper, is violin playing j every? body Beems to have gone violin mad, both; men and women. It is, of conrse, the prince of instruments, but an extremely ungraceful one to play, either for gentlemen or for, ladies, and, indeed, for the latter particularly awkward. The same fad is now popular in Paris, where Prince Pierre Garaman-Ohimajf is the fashionable fiddler. The popular Prince plays, not only in salons, but, not unfrequently, in public for charitable object^ and is an amateur of considerable merit. Ha performs on the violoncello, and his instru* ment is the famous 'cello of Servais, wbicfx the Prince purchased lasb year for the waxk * 'of 60,000f r. \ • The Empress of Austria, walking up ttt Rochebrune, asked a peasant to show her the way. He strode on, and go as quickly as he/ would she kept up with him. At last, "in' evident admiration, he turned round and looked at her. "Well, Majesty," he said, "you are a walker, considering your agei' And the Empress laughed, '.'An agitation is being carried on among women in Germany having for its object the issuing of a general protest against; different clauses of the new oivil oode which has just!, been submitted to the Reichstag, It is no£, generally known outside of Germany that, a», regards civil law, women in that oountry. have occupied a painfully and most unjustly inferior position, and the hopes that the no\^ oodo would redress their erievattC.es havSf

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alas, proved most faliaciotto. A married woman, for instance, has, if no special contract has been made, no right to dispose of her own fortune without the permission of her husband. A certain American girl of great wealth who married a titled, bat penniless, Teuton wag quite ignorant of this very unpleasant little fact, whioh her noble spouse took good care to bring to her Notice the very day after their marriage 1 Moreover, in Germany, the husband is solely entitled to administrate and to have the naufruot of his wife's money, even of that which she earns 1 This, of course, is Dot only enjust, but absolutely cruei, and most persons who have been in the habit of frequenting" Baden-Baden will remember a potable instance of this— a wife, a lady by ibirth, working tike a dog to keep her perfectly idle husband in luxury, and to proWide him with ample means for his multi* JEorm dissipations. Then, again, in Germany tevery financial transaction entered upon by a Woman without the knowledge and consent of her 'husband can be cancelled, and this is an old way of getting out of paying bills, in a few cases, women are unable to act as guardians. They are also excluded from family councils, and so on. All this has led to the petitition to the Reichstag, but it Se doubtful whether it has much chance of being acceded to. i A Novelty for Our Floral Readers, . ' Take a dried cone or burr of a white pine or a fir tree which has shed its needs, and sprinkle various kinds' of grass and canary bird seed into its various openings ; then cover them slightly with floe scouring sand, and place the cone into a wine-glase, or, a Email vase filled with water. In a few days the cone will have absorbed so much moistnre that *va circles will close up ; in a few more "iie seed will sprout, and soon their shoots will form a pyramid of living green, beautifully relieved by the dark brown pedestal formed by the pine cone ; and if the water is renewed as it evaporates, the grass .will grow and even flower in the miniature garden. A number of different sized cones can be procured and placed in a shallow glass preserve-dish, when the effect will bo more beautiful, because many varieties of grass can be sown. For the Housekeeper. Transparent paper for copying drawings or Bf • Uework designs may be easily made by •placing a sheet of paper over the drawing, and rubbing it lightly with pure benzine. The traoiog can then be made, and the benzine evaporating, leaves the paper opaque as before. Saturate the earth aronnd house plants every day with the coffee left over from breakfast. It stimulates them. Plants that have a red or purple blossom will be rendered extremely brilliant in colour by covering the .Earth in their pots with about half an inch of pulverised charcoal. A yellow flower will not be affected in any way by the use of charcoal. There is a general opinion that few people, espeoially among tho young, have enough' sleep. A famous German physician says that every one up to the age of 21 should sleep for nine hours out of the 9A. In middle life, people who can perform ordinary routine work when they are half awake may suffer so harm for a time with six hours' sleep, but all who use their brains should have at' least eight hour*. An excellent polish for mahogany is made of one part of boiled linseed oil to two parts of alcoholic shellac varnish. The mixture must be well shaken, applied in email quantities with a 1 woollen cloth, and rubbed Vigorously. A fine polish will bs produced. Staine of rust may be removed from fine linen and similar fabrics without injury' to the material. The articles must be first well soaped, as if they were to be washed in the ordinary way. An '.iron is heated, and on this is laid a wet cloth. When the heat makes the cloth steam, the rust stain is laid on it, and a little oxalio acid is rubbed on with the finger. The heat and the moistnre hasten the effect of the aoid on the rust, and whan this has disappeared the soaping and washing may be continued. An authority on the chemistry of foods cautions housewives sgainst cooling loaves of bread too rapidly after taking them from the oven, " Much of the souring of bread," he says, "is doubtless due to lack of care during cooling." Bread is, especially while warm, a good soil for the development of various kinds of moulds and bacteria. A loaf of bread, hot from the oven, taken into a poorly-ventilated room filled with people, will become sour In the course of two or three hours. Excellent waterproof paper for packing may be made of old newspapers. A mixture is made of copal varnish, boiled linseed oil, and turpentine, In equal parts. It' is painted on the paper with a flat varnish brush, and the sheets are laid on one side until d»y. This paper has been very successfully used for packing plants for sending long distances. •There is scarcely any ache to which children are subject so bard to bear as earache. Almost instantaneous relief may be obtained by making a funnel of writing paper, saturating a small piece ' of cotton batting in chloroform, and dropping it in the funnel. Pat the small end of the funnel into the ear, and, placing the mouth close to the other end, blow into it. The fumes of the chloroform will quickly relieve the pain, and if the head is kept covered the patient will soon be At ease. Dip a cloth moistened with sweet oil into pulverised rottenstone and rub your brasses it. Then polish them with dry rottenstone and a piece of dry flannel. When brass utensils are not in use thoroughly clean them \vith rottenstone and' oil, wrap them up tight in papers, and keep in a dry place. To make a .good hard soap dissolve lib of potash in 12 quarts of water in the kettle in •which the soap is to be boiled. Add to the potash 51b of grease. Boil slowly, adding a little boiling water as it is cocking- S' iv with a stick, and boil two or three hours. When the mixture adheres and strings from the . stick it is boiled enough. Four into old pans Or moulds. The following day cub into bars and dry for use. 1 Daintily embroidered pieceß of linen are spade into little bags and filled with perfume powders to place in drawers among olothing, table linen, 'sheets, and pillowcases. For this purpose a delightful powder wag be »a£§«J

Jib of orris rocft, ilb of gronnd rose leaves, 2oz of powdered Tonquin beans, loz of vanilla beans, jjdr of grain of musk, and two drops of otto of almonds. Mix all by sifting through a sieve. Some Home Easliions. The great fact of the raornant is THE BESTJSOITATIOtf OP OBAPB. A little time back its disappearance, save in the caso of deepest mourning, was looked on as a foregone conclusion, and its departure was hailed with relief by the economical, for it is distinctly costly wear, and requires attention just at a time when one oates least to be bothered about one's clothes. Bowever, with the royal mourning it i 3 back once more, and used in greater profusion than ever. Alas 1 say I. Anyway, the fact remains that THE SMARTEST DRBSSE3 are in tones appertaining to what Punch once declared the fashionable dressmakers termed "mitigated affliction." Here is a specimen. Imagine a perfeotly-fUting princess dress of plain blaok cloth, finished with » deep square collar at the back, of chinchilla fur, ending in rather wide fur rovers in front, with a pointed waistcoat of white satin covered with black net spangled with silver; a bunch of violets, shading from deepest purple to white, was fixed at the side of the collar-band, whilst another bunch accentuated the point of the waistcoat, a similar bunch being set on one side of the little black velvet Dutch-shaped bonnet, balanced on the other by upstanding loops ot the fur. Another black stuff dress had a silken bodies covered with jat-ombroidsred net, with collarette and cuffs of ermine, a toque of silk, jetted tulle, and ermine finishing the toilette. One of the newest Paris hats, of course in black and white, was of some soft, gauzy black stnff, gathered into Bhape by a buckle of exquisitely cut steel, paste, and pearls, : with A PERFECT DIADEM OP FEATHERS, ranging from black to pearly white, across the front, where, so Paris decrees, the greatest height of our headgear is to be this year rather in the style of Rider Haggard's famous Masai warriors. Black tulle is in great request for bonnets ; and certainly nothing else is so becoming to every style of ! faoe. It looks horribly as if the loose sacque coats were really coming in. If so, please note one thing, and that is that the only saving grace they possess ia — shortness I If you must evr, err at least on tha side of curtailment. But I warn you to be careful, for somehow I do not think these coats will be more than a passing fancy. They certainly are not graceful, for they cat the figure " in two halveu," as your 'Tina nsed to say, with disastrous effect to those who are not, like the daughters of the gods, " divinely tall," and give a trussed-cbioken look to the arms. I saw rather A PBETTY FOBM OF OOAT AND SKIRT the other day which may serve as a type. The plain and not too full skirt was of olivegreen velvet of a deop shade, and with this was worn a shirt of soft chine silk of a pinkish shade, with an indistinct wavy pattern of deep red oleanders and faded green leaves, a green velvet' belt and gorget finishing it, with a dainty little waterfall of lace from the throat. So much for indoors. When going out the wearer donned a loose coat, with very full sleeves, with turned-baok gauntlet cuffs of creamy guipure, A square yoke of the same encircled the high funnel collar, which was trimmed with soft black ostrich tips curling over the top ; from the yoke hung four stole ends, two back and two front, of the lace, the velvet hanging in loose folds from the square yoke, and the back and front being precisely alike. With it was worn a quaint little toque of Parma violets, the fiat crown fitting into rosettes of bkek tulle, from which atood up right in the front an aigrette such as we now call "the Shabzada," inasmuch as it resembles the bottle-brush kind of thing Nasrallah Khan used to adopt, made of black oßprsy, an ostrich tip, and cut jet and emerald beads mounted on invisible wire. It formed a very complete toilet, and was suitable enough for the girl who wore it, but would, I fanoy, become anything but a joy to a woman who had to make her clothes last I We are still debating the question of sleeves, and it is almost as dangerous to question the fulness or tightness of them as it is to breathe the name of "Dr Jim " in strange company. Did it depend on masculine opinion, the doom of the excrescent slesve, the cart-wheel hat, and the bell skirt would have been long since pronounced ; but whoever we dresa for in these days, it certainly is not for our husbands and brothers 1 They are loud in their condemnation of these vagaries, and uphold the stern simplicity of the old tailormade with the utterest constancy. But who will win remains to be seen. One thing is, I fancy, sure to happen, ancrthat is that if the tighter sleeve does come in it will be counterbalanced by an increased exaggeration of the neck ruff of the epaulet. Chine, chine, chine 1 That is THE KEYNOTE OF THE MOMENT, whether the material be mohair or silk, ribbon or stuff. They are all extremely ] pretty, and the fashion is spsoially adapted for shirts and blouses, whilst the new shot moires are quite the loveliest things that have been brought out for Court dress for a long time. The brocades, lovely as their designs have been up till now, arc developing a tendency to undue size, and some designs have been almost grotesque, not to say ungainly, from this causa. Another idea that is said to be coming in for the summer is the housemaid skirt in grenadine on a coloured silk foundation, gathered all round ths waist. These figured grenadines and canvas materials lend themselves so admirably to this treatment ifc 5a no wonrior if this fashion does catch on. — "Elspeth," in the.Weekly Oitizsn.