LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2391, 28 December 1899, Page 55

LADIES' GOSSIP.

— Not the least curious phenomenon of this modern London of ours, writes Ella Hepworth Dixon, is the spinsters who entertain. This departure from the tiresome convention that only married ladies should wine and dine people is, to be sure, an affair of recent growth. It probably came like some other breezy customs, from the other side of the North Atlantic. In Great Britain, up to a year or two ago, tea waa the only refreshment which the spinster could, with propriety, offer to her friends and acquaintances. Nowadays charming; young ladies entertain the most august personages in the land to lunch, to dinner, or^ *S supper.. There are even girls wjtio. jtajsaf

large country houses, fill them with amusing people, and go so far in their hospitable [plans as to give fancy dress balls and pri- j ijvate theatricals. All this, it musb be ad- . Wttedj makes for gaiety in a not too hila- j rious world. English amusements and en- > jtertainments are always apt to get into a j Sfixed groove, to become,^ as it were, mere j uninteresting routine, 'ilie very fact that j jthe spinsters' party is something new in the ' (social scheme is already a point in its | Savour. At any rate, in taking the question of entertaining boldly into her own ponds the modern "maid," both old and young, is only showing that she has acWuired one of the most powerful of the strategic arts. A woman who is not asked rout to dine at important houees does not count for much. It is one of the most striking facts in this whirling world of Lonpon that people are mainly judged by the {houses they dine at. The dinner is the social test of the capital. It is small Hvonder that the modern young person, who nothing if not astute, has grasped this toatent truth, and is already rallying to her banner the more agreeable and enlightened pf her contemporaries.

', — Ladies' maids, it is reported, are ever adding to their accomplishments, some of which are dressmaking, hairdressing, massage, manicure, chiropody, swimming, cycling, and photography. From £18 to £20 ft year will be the pay of an average lady's jna;id ; but those who are able to boast of ■one or two of the above " extras " can comjnand from £30 to £35.

— Like the poor, the servant question is always with us, and at this time both misl.jtresß and maid have their eyes on " the fferm." " Scarcer than ever " are the words ."ione is met with at the registries, and the 'mistresses yield to panic in their dread of feeing left' without, and outbid one another in offers of high wages and little work.

Hhe constant demand of the maids is for

fa place with one lady and gentleman." Silas, for the unfortunate possessors of chil-

dren ! How many sides there are to the ' •Question ! One nears co-operation among ]the servants advocated, so that their , t" rights " may be defined. Most of them Jdo not need their " rignts " to be defined ; i fehey are well able themselves to define j fhem. Co-operation among the mistresses anight foe more to the point, for at present it is they who are being pushed to the , 'jvall. In many cases they live in abject j thread of "the lady in the* kitchen," afraid ? jfco find fault, almost afraid to give orders ' ■for fear of her throwing up her place. I ; wonder how a conclave of women would s|tvork, who would form a Domestic Servants' Employers' Association, this association to . jorganise a crusade against the tyranny of $ie domestic, and to draw up a table of rates, fixing the wages for the various glasses of work, the nights out, and all the Mother burning questions in the house,. The .difficulty is that women rarely will cooperate. The nervous anxiety which overcomes so many women when a change of .servants is looming ahead makes them apt to be " real mean to one another. Apropos of this. Two ladies while waiting in a registry the other day were discussing the •servant question, and found that their ,nar- '

ticular views were very much in accord. Next day, while on the hunt, both ladies met at the door of a house where the first to arrive was inlervieAving the housemaid. She was in reality on the point of engaging the girl, remarking, " Then I shall give you £18." Lady No. 2 here came forward, saying, " I'll give you £20 if you'll come to me. And no washing." — Glasgow Citizen.

—Of all the curious kinds of lace, especially old lace, the most curioiis is that which is called point tresse. It is very rare, and was made of human hair. French collectors say that it exists in the present day only in their cabinets. It was confined to the early part of the sixteenth century. Margaret, Countess of Lennox, the mother of the wretched Darnley, sent from the Tower, where she was imprisoned when her son, Lord Charles Lennox, married the daughter of Bess of Hardwicke, a bit of this kind of lace to Mary, Queen of Scots. This is a very strong proof of her belief in the Queen's innocence of the guilt that had been imputed to her. The little square of point tresse was worked by the Countess's own hands from her own grey hair. It was, in fact, hair mixed with fine flax. Life is not long enough for these doings now.

— In the feather trade every real plume that becomes popular is soon reproduced artificially. A manufacturer explains that a very pretty egret can be constructed out of a porcupine's bristle.

— Those who have good pieces of mother-of-pearl in their possession would do well to keep them. Mother-of-pearl brooches, hair ornaments, and breloques surrounded with diamonds are just beginning to be the rage in Paris.

—To a woman there is no happiness more sincere, more honest than that of spending money freely on her personal adornment. Sfext in degree is that of spending it on the decoration of another. Such as have not money at command to lavish enjoy a very real and full happiness when the chance comes to them to dip freely into another person's purse regardless of the object for which they dip. — S. Bar-ing-Gould.

— The Princess of Wales and all the lady members of her family have decided in future not to wear real osprey plumes, so that artificial ones are now being made to look quite equal to the real thing.

— A •, tinge of romance clings to the geyser as to the volcano, perhaps because it is one of the marvels of our infancy, like the pyramids of Egypt and the Great Wall of China ; and it is not without a shock that we can hear of the ingenious Yankee who compels one to heat his greenhouse. After this Mr Middlewick's desire to have the volcano " turned on " was by no means unreasonable. We are not surprised to learn that it is in the Yellowstone Park where the geyser is " harnessed "' by the gardener — anything is possible there. The park is over 7000 ft above the level of the sea, and ice forms nearly every month of the year ; but with the help of the hot water of the spring, which is nearly at the boiling point, Mr W. P. Howe, of Upper Geyser B.isin, is able to grow abundance of vegetah l " 1 " jtHhout ajjy ex^ensejji forcing them.