LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 3413, 13 August 1919, Page 57

LADIES' GOSSIP.

The particular beauty of Lady Diana Manners' wedding gown was its fragile daintiness. The gold and silver tissue under the gown and train held no suggestion of heaviness, but gave merely a shimmering lustre and loveliness to the cobwebby lace gown. No wonder the bride, on the threshold of the church, turned while her train was being arranged, and added a warning for the pages, "Tell them not to drag it. ' Miss Ruth Law (Mrs Oliver), who has announced that she intends to make a bid to cross the Atlantic in June, flying a Curtiss aeroplane already has the honour of having made the longest flight ever achieved by a woman. On November 20, 1916, she piloted a Curtiss aeroplane from Chicago to Hornell, New York, in 8 hours 59 minutes— a distance of 896 miles. Five hundred and ninety miles were covered without a stop. Miss Law's home is in New York. During the war she unsuccessfully sought active service with the American Air Force in France. —lt is a pleasant triumph of the old over the new that farmers agree that women are the best milkers, remarks a Daily Chronicle writer. It cannot be said that woman was ousted from the milking-stool by man; she left it quite willingly, or, as an old farmer once said to us, she took to playing the piano instead. But for quite a number of years now the pretty milkmaid tripping through the meadow has been a '. figment of the past. The milk girls of Hardy's "Tess" may have existed here and there in 1914, but we think that they, too, were becoming a memory of the past. Now they have' returned to the byre. Let us hope they will not play truant again. Lady Wolfe Barry (widow of Sir John Wolfe Barry) has turned her beautiful home at Chelsea into a "communal home," where she keeps open house for many members of her family, who have closed their own residences. Destinnova, whose charm as Madame Butterfly is so delicate and elusive, has another side to her nature, a side which she displayed in Berlin six years ago (says the Daily Chronicle). Posing for a film, she stood, calm and unconcerned, in a cage with half a score of lions, and sang to them, while one of the beasts, which had been induced to sit on the grand piano, went to sleep. This apparent want of appreciation of the great singer's art is explained by the fact . that Madame Destinnova sang sotto voce, lest her powerful tones should excite her strange audience. As a matter of sheer history, the lions yawned.

Mrs Henrietta Mary Ward, who recently celebrated her 87th birthday and is still painting portraits, i s the granddaughter of an K.A., niece of another R.A.—besides being a great-niece of George Morland—married an E.A., and has been herself exhibiting at the Royal Academy off and on since she was seventeen—a year after her marriage! Mrs Ward, who has painted many portraits of royalty, and worked from time to time for Queen Victoria, is the mother of Leslie Ward, the famous caricaturist "Sov " of "Vanity Fair." . J ' The body of Gabrielle Petit, who was sentenced to death for espionage on March 3, 1916, and shot at the Tir National on March 31, at the age of 22, lay in state the other day, together with those of two other patriots, Aime Smekens, and Mathieu Bodson, at Schaerbeek, in the presence of a great assembly, which included the British Minuter and Military Attache. Gabrielle Tetit was born at tfournai and was an assistant in a fur shop near Sainte Gudule. When her fiance was wounded at Liege, she nursed him to health and ennabled him to rejoin the Belgian Army through Holland. Afterwards she "worked" on the front between Ypres and Maubeuge, supplying valuable information to the Allies. When she was arrested and tried she displayed the utmost fortitude and indifference both to German threats and offers of safety made her if she would reveal her accomplices. At the execution she said, '-'You are going to see how a young Belgian girl can die," and absolutely declined to allow her eyes to be bandaged. She fell, crying "Vive la Belgique, vive le . . .!"

Music booms, although very furious while they last, are, as a rule, short-lived. The cakewalk craze is forgotten, ragtime and tango are but memories, and now the jazz is about to join the great majority. Jazz bands, which were introduced into the programmes of the music halls and the revues, have already disappeared, and although they are still to be found in the night clubs and in the West End ballrooms, it is evident that their days are numbered. "I think that the next boom will be an Oriental one," Mr Herman Darewski, the composer and publisher, told a Daily News representative. "Already there is a brisk demand for music with haunting, eerie, and languorous tunes, and there is every sign that it will succeed the jazz, the popularity of which is waning. Typical numbers of the Oriental type are 'lndianola,' 'By the Camp Fire,' and 'Hindustan,' which are already on the market. These numbers will be heard all over the country, played by the Guards' bands downwards during the next few months."

Mystery is an element of charm which is in danger of being lost sight of, but

in the return to fashion of the veil woman is showing that the fact is not altogether forgotten. Recognised as an essential of smart attire the veil has still (says a writer in the Daily Dispatch) an even more powerful hole! upon the minds of women, the subtle force of knowledge that the veil is a shield, a weapon if you will, that protects and defends, that creates illusions, that charms, allures, and mystifies. We are all still daughters of Evecoquetry is an inheritance of all women. Only the exception, the very modemly advanced female, has discarded coquetry for equal rights, and even she, with keen desire to protect herself from dirt and microbes, accepts the veil for hygienic reasons. The veil is- the thing for a pretty woman and equally so for the plain woman; the clever woman, pretty or plain—and it must be admitted that most clever women are plain rather than pretty —knows the full value of a veil, and is seldom seen without one, no matter what type of hat is worn.

PAINTED FURNITURE. We are assured that furniture will not become cheaper for a long time, and that it will never be as cheap as in pre-war days. I can quite believe it. Prices are the only things which are quite independent of the laws of gravity; having once gone up there is apparently no necessity for them ever to come down! Therefore many of us must abandon the dream of spick-and-span new furiture and make the best of our shabby old treasures and clean and paint them *up to look, if not new, at least presentable. Old painted furniture can be made quite smart again. But do not run away with the idea that it is a very simple matter, and that a pot of even the most magical enamel, warranted to transform a pigsty into a boudoir in half an hour, applied haphazard on top of the old paint will do the trick. That way lies disappointment for you and undeserved reproaches for the enamel. All the dirt of ages must be caused to disappear; to achieve this the piece of furnture must be well scrubbed with a stiff brush and hot soda-water to get rid of as much of the old paint as possible, and a final scouring with glass-paper given to obtain a perfectly even surface. Then, haying made sure 'that the piece to be painted is absolutely dry and clean, begin to paint. Choose a fine bright day for this, as painting done on a wet day takes much longer to dry, is apt to be "sticky," and is never very satisfactory. Three coats at least will be necessary. For the first, or "under-coating": white is generally the safest, though unless for a very pale colour a sort of stone grey can be used, and is sometimes easier to obtain and cheaper. When this undercoat is quite dry and hard a coat of the chosen colour can be put x>n, and finally a coat of your favourite enamel. Each coat must be allowed to become absolutely dry and hard, and all blobs and unevenness removed with a pen-knife and glasspaper before another coat is applied. Remember to keep the paint smooth and thin. The best enamel is improved by the addition of a little turpentine, which-helps to ensure this, and also hastens drying;' your brush-strokes must. be all in the same direction; and your old friend will look as good as new. But—and this is a solmen warning—if you rashly apply new. enamel over old paint, not only will the new never lie easy, but it will even tear up the old paint with it and leave horrible bare patches which no amount of touching up will ever disguise. Any further decoration which may commend itself it to you may be added; but even without this your pieces of furniture will be a credit to you if you pay strict attention to the foregoing hints. I cannot too often insist on the necessity of scrupulous' cleanliness, both of work and brushes, which must De kept soft and free from grease. This can be achieved by standing them in a tin of water when not in use.

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS. Mix your blacklead to a cream with equal parts of vinegar, turpentine, and paraffin. A grate cleaned with this takes on the most brilliant polish. A box filled with lime placed on the shelf in a pantry and frequently renewed will absorb the damp and keep the air pure and dry. Mildew stains may be removed from leather articles quite easily if the part is well rubbed with vaseline, then after a day or two wiped with a soft, clean rag. Stains can be removed from enamel pans with the remains of lemons that have had the juice and rind used for cooking purposes. To prevent a saucepan containing cabbage or cauliflower from boiling over, add to the water a piece of butter the size of a walnut. This will make the vegetables cook steadily, and they will not require watching. Suet puddings are lighter and more digestible if made of half flour and half bread-crumbs. It is a good way of ■ using up stale bread, and reduces the flour bill. Newspapers folded into a thick pad with a little bath-brick sprinkled on are excellent for cleaning knives. The printer's ink ge'ts the stains out very easily. To remove mud stains from light clothes, brush as much of the mud as possible away when dry, and afterwards rub the spots with a raw potato. To rid a house of beetles, sprinkle corners and cupboards freely with powdered borax. Powdered borax dissolved in water is a splendid cleanser of all kinds of paint. Small cakes need a hotter oven than a large one. _ Put such things as rock cakes well apart on the tin, for they are sure to spread a little while cooking. Always line with paper the tin in which you are going to bake a cake with syrup or chocolate in it. For some reason or other such cakes are specially liable to burn. If you can't get anything in the way of fruit, and yet want to make a cake,

add just a little powdered ginger to the mixture—a small level tcaspoonful to a pound of flour. It gives quite a pleasant flavour. Dried orange and lemon skins, if carefully grated, make a very nice flavouring for cakes. Another -way is to soak the skins in hot water till soft, then dry and shred them into the cake. Test small cakes, like rock cakes, by pressing with your finger in the centre. If firm they are done. They should be nicely browned underneath as well as on top. Time and labour can be saved by holding a newspaper before the grate when raking out ashes. This causes the dust to go up the chimney instead of flying into the room. When vegetables are required for an early dinner consisting of stew, soup, etc.. the best way to prepare them is to cut them up roughly and put through the mincing machine. They can then be added to the soup or stock, and take very little time to cook. When brushing carpets first sprinkle a little damp salt on the surface before brushing. This is an excellent thing for laying the dust, and the carpet will look like new.