LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 81

LADIES' GOSSIP.

—The. Women’s Educational and Industrial Union of Boston has added expert visiting housekeepers to its department of household economics. For a small fee the visiting housekeepers will drop in and set the machinery of the household running smoothly by exhibiting new equipment or giving aid or instruction in whatever branch mistress or maid may need it. The Jewish Women in Russia have presented their first petition to the Duma. In this petition they beg that legislation, bo enacted to prevent husbands sending their wives a bill of divorce by messenger. As things are now, a Hebrew husband can divorce his wife, with the consent of the rabbi, by giving her a bill of divorcement. If the wife does not wish to be divorced, she can refuse to take the paper, and it does not become valid without her acceptance. When the bill is sent by a messenger the wife, not knowing what the paper is, has no means of protecting herself. . , . The Royal .House of Sweden has possessed few princesses during the last balfoentury. King Gustavus was one of several sons. He himself has three sons and no daughter; the Crown Prince Is the fa ther of two sons, and now there is Prince William of Slider mania’s son. The children of Prince Oscar, who married Miss Ebba Mnnck, do: not. of course, count as members of the Royal Family, and Prince Eugeno is -unmarried. The only girls therefore arc to be found in. the family of Charles, Duke of Westrogothia, the King’s third brother, who married Princess Ingcborg, a daughter of • the King and Queen of Denmark, . ; —■ “Carmen, jSylya,” the Queen of Rou"cnia, has added to her long list of kind . aliens by converting a castle ini Germany ’'o a home for poor artists and authors, "■.eve is probably no other royal lady in . -.rope who does so much for the poor as ns “Carmen Sylva,” and she is simply ’’"zed all over Roumania. Some time > -ho started a. novel form of charity, o gave orders for an issue of “charity imps,” to be need for the benefit of ,ny institutions in which she took an ic'rsst. On .each of these stamps there a picture of the Queen. In one she is sn visiting the sick ; in another working " .or loom, and so on. The stamps are \ ailab’o only for inland postage, and are ■■■turaily in great demand among philat-

—• Thane is: an interesting story told of Miss Alice Burke,' whose death was recent'v announced. After the terrible assass- ; nation of Lord Frederick Cavendish and '■wv brother, Mr T. H. Burke, in Phoenix Park, Miss Burke was prostrated with grief. But when the sentence of death was pronounced on the murderers, Miss Burke steeled hers-df to the ordeal of visiting more-than one of the prisoners, and uttered words of forgiveness which were as finely magnanimous as the attitude of Lady Frederick Cavendish at the same terrible time. Miss Burke has justpassed away at Florence. The first appearance in a Russian court of a woman barrister, Mile. Fleischitz, as one of,the four defending counsel in a robbery trial, caused a remarkable scene. The Public Prosecutor declared that in his opinion tbs appearance of a woman as counsel was illegal, although the Russian law. did not specifically say so. Mile, rieiachitjz replied, defending her position,, and. was supported by her male colleagues; . The court retired to consider the question, and eventually decided in Mile. Flelschitz’s favour, whereupon the Public Prosecutor stated that he would not attend Fhof proceedings. The defending counsel demanded the nomination of another prosecutor, but the president closed the sitting. The legal husband, wife, and child are still the units-of society. The best woman is still the good woman, who- maintains her culture bv imparting it to her children, who interpolates her mother wit in a world, , of pioneering and argument, and who, as far as may be-,_ makes her own home a microcosm of Utopia. It may be all very, difficult, and may require some self-limitation in exchange for some,, selffulfilment. Such,a wopiaa. will suffer, as all men and wpmewi suffer, but she will be

coffin more beautiful than she whose beauty launched a thousand ships and burned the topless towers of Ilium.— “John o’ London,” in “T.P’s Weekly.” Miss Mary R. Macarthur, joint secretary of the Women’s Trade Union and Labour League, speaking at a meeting held in Trafalgar square, London, under the direction ot her organization, described the conditions under which girl florists worked in the West End, adding that many of them laboured 14 hours a day, without allowance time for dinner. Recently the girls held a meeting, in order to secure better conditions, and to ask the Horae Secretary nob to exempt them from the clauses of the Factories Act, for some of them were compelled to work until 10 o’clock at night. She was sorry to say that many titled ladies had sent in a petition for such, exemption to Mr Gladstone, and she was still further sorry that the petition, lying at that moment in the Home Office, had been signed by Mrs Asquith. The object was that West End ballrooms could be decorated up to 10 o’clock at night. Perhaps she should not have let out the secret, but there was the fact that the wife of the Prime Minister had signed such a petition.