LADIES’ GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 3148, 15 July 1914, Page 65

LADIES’ GOSSIP.

Woman is given the greatest task in the world (says Mary Champion in the Express). The whole world belongs to her, as she bears the whole world. She is the culprit if a nation sinks. The child is hers, and the child’s thoughts and actions are hers. In the hollow of her hand she holds the destinies of kings and courtiers, in her cradle she tends the buds of a new nation.

Mr George Knatohbull, a Chicago millionaire, declared that his * little daughter, Mamie, should be brought up to mix with the poor daughters of the great Republic; so she attends a free school daily. He requested that the teachers should make no difference whatever in their treatment of the other little girls and Mamie. So the small daughter of a millionaire sits in form between the little girl of one of the municipal scavengers and another small maiden whose father is quite poor, too. Mamie is a great favourite with the other children, and she is remarkably quick at her lessons. Serpents coiling round the ankles are the latest craze in hosiery. They are embroidered with metallic threads, and have a startlingly realistic appearance on dark silk stockings. For evening wear, with very low-cut shoes, lizards, frogs, beetles, and other creatures not usually beloved

by -women are seen sprawling or crawling along the instep. Another novelty promised for the warmer weather is the “fishing-net” stocking, with square-inch mesh.

—ln West Virginia a man may marry his deceased wife’s sister, but is forbidden by law to marry his step-daughter. In Massachusetts a man may marry his deceased wife’s sister, but is prohibited from wedding her grandmother. In Maryland whites and negroes or mulattoes who intermarry are “ deemed guiity of an infamous crime ”, and are subject to 10 years’ imprisonment; but if they go across the border into Pennsylvania, and get married there and return to Maryland they are not breaking the law. In Utah an epileptic woman is permitted to marry after she is 45 years old, but not before.