WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 142, 12 December 1911, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen.") FALSE HAIR Those women who eke out their tresses ■with artificial aids may read with interest the following from Every Lady's Journal: —''The hair shipped abroad from this Empire," says Consul-General Anderson, of Hongkong, "is combings from well-to-do people, mostly women. A Chinese maid in dressing her mistress' hair simply saves and sells to the barber the combings that were formerly thrown away. . . . Seldom, if ever, arc! full heads of hair taken, nor are queues used! . . . . So far as a layman can judge, the hair turned out by the preparing establishments here is equal to the best European product. The mass of hair shipped from Hongkong is purchased originally at Canton, and represents a collection of small bits from literally millions of people." Stories of queues cut from the dead are indignantly denied. In 1907 the exports of human hair from Hongkong were valued at about £BOOO. | The total shipment of hair to all countries from China'in 1910 is estimated at 1,300,0001b5, valued at £300,000. "The hair is first combed into lengths," says the Consul-General. "It is then washed in ammonia, soft soap and soda, dried, and then boiled for one day in plain water. It is again dried and then treated to four or five chemicals, according to its condition, to sterilise, preserve and render it fit for use. It is then bleached, washed and dyed in different colors and packed." The purchaser should remember that while Chinese hair retails at about one-tentli the' price of European hair, the latter is ten times more desirable on account of its texture and lasting qualities. The Chinese hair, while equally commendablo from a sanitary point of view, w coarser and rougher in texture, and having been bleached and re-dyed, it fades in color after having been worn a few months. It is sad but true that Chinese hair is sometimes palmed off on unsuspecting purchasers as European hair. As the waving and dressing robs it of all na- I tional characteristics, it requires expert eyes and fingers to detect tlie difference. One way of determining is to rub the fingers along the hair towards the roots. The Chinese hair will be rough and brit : tie in contrast to the silky texture of the , European hair.

I | THE GIRL WHO NEVER GROWS UP Most of ug number among our acquaintances a girl or woman who has never properly grown up. We are all - born a certain age that our characters determine, some old, some young. She remains at a stage of perpetual youth, never passing the girlish outlook. Like the delightful Peter Pan, her heart is that of a child, and her chatter and laughter are as innocent and good to hear (says a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald). The subjects that engross her are home and sport, and little details of friendship; but she has room for books and music, with a surprising knowledge of tliera. Her pity for the tragedies of life is akin to that of a thoughtful child, deepened by time and knowledge—there is that difference between thMil. If love comes to her she develops into the rare mother who is a companion to her daughters, and in particular request as a chaperone among their friends —if it docs not, she grows into the "old" maid, who is young and cheerful for ever, and interested in a thousand people and things. ; Her frame of mind is an unconscious power; there is no more effective way of warding off evil than by being unconscious of its existence to a great extent. Such a na,i ture may have its battle with life, but j it is spared a battle against itself, or J against the restless ambitions of the j world. With a standard of judgment that is high and critical this girl does not obtrude it in her manners. She is very far from severity, very far from the woman who aims at success. Because without effort she flings ambition aside. Her type is not colorless—she can devote herself to the care of those she loves with the constant sacrifice daily life demands. Such an approach to the perfection of self-immolation is not lacking in romance, though it be painted in homely colors. The child brought up in a worldly atmosphere with love of social success implanted. must be armed with knowledge of its dangers, and leaves her childhood promptly behind. The girl-who-never-grows-up does not require such knowledge. Her armor is in its lack, and the world's efforts to impart it leave her still the same. Amid the strenuous competition of modern days, that inevitablv sharpens the wits of its daughters till they tend to rasp under the strain, such a character is a relief and an originality. Like Nature, she preaches an unconscious sermon, growing as naturally as the flowers. There is a charm of rest in her serene and refreshing personality. ACTRESS AND MILLIONAIRE The hearing was.ponunenced in Paris last month 'of the suit for divorce that Mile. Lina Cavalieri, the famous Italian , prima donna, has brought against Mr. Robert W. Chanler, an American millionaire. Discussing the case with a Press interviewer, Mile. Cavalieri said that Chanler promised her an annual allowance of £20.000 if she married him and left the stage. The famous singer declares that, she never took a cent of her husband's money. She does not want .G1.000,000 alimony, as reported, but simply the E 100.000 that she lost' while not following her profession. It is not quite a year and a-half ago since the parties were married in Paris. The betrothal took place in rather romantic circumstances, Mr. Chanler proposing and being accepted by telegraph. The marriage created a great stir, and the publication in the American newspapers of the tender messages that had passed between the couple heightened the interestwhich was felt in the union of a New York society leader and one of the foremost actresses. It, was reported some months ago that Mr. Chanler had paid Mile. Cavalieri £IO,OOO to release him from all contracts into which he had entered previously to his marriage. WOMEN IN SHOPS The male shop assistant is rinding the woman a thorny subject (says the Sydney Morning Herald). He objects to her being introduced into his industrial paradisc. if such it niay lie termed, with all its disabilities. Xnt nngallant enough to tell her with brutal candor that he objects to her coming there at all to i serve customers, he is turning to the shop proprietor/ and telling 'him that there should be equal pay for men and women shop assistants. Altogether, a curious condition of affairs has developed. An attempt to introduce women mio some departments sacred to the male assistant has made the Shop Assistants' I nion angry. In the ironmongery department of a large establishment, where SO men are employed, two women were introduced. Viewing this as the thin edge of the wedge, the male assistants ceased work, until an arrangement wo* made that the women were not to sell anything above the value of threepence or sixpence. The Shop Assistants' Union li-is implied to the Master Retailers' Association for a conference on the

matter of increasing the rates of pay for females in departments where formerly men only were employed. THE MODERN WOMAN. At the present time a most interesting article, written by George Edgar, is 'being animatedly discussed by all classes of women, not only in their clubs, but in drawing rooms; in fact, everywhere the fair sex collects nothing else is talked of, because his statements are so true (writes a London correspondent). He says: "I do not think anyone who goes about London with the open eye can have failed to observe a very startling revolution in the attitude of women to the whole question of life—a revolution which has not been entirely bloodless. That women should have a women's cause, should be prepared to suffer for it, and make many self-sacrifices in the shape of service to further its ends, are only aspects of the phenomenon. There is a growing difference in woman herself, in her expression and carriage, in her method of dress, in her ways of thought and her whole attitude of life. I should say the sum-total of it means an inborn determination to be in the game of life itself, instead of standing outside the arena a protected and sometimes pampered spectator. The woman of to-day does not sit at home; no longer does she look in the glass, see crow's feet multiplying with wrinkling vigor, and count her grey hairs in despair, thinking of her place in the corner of the house, and conducted and protected journeys without, in a bonnet and rusty gown. No; she goes to a 'better costumier and a thoughtful constructor of corsets, her hairdresser for a more skilful craftsman, and practises face-massage, and increases her milliner's 'bill. It is the hat that makes tlie woman, from the cradle to the grave, and the bonnet of a generation ago often aged her and labelled her old and uninteresting even before she had stepped out of youth. Only women who really like: trouble, and spend their lives searching for it, wear bonnets to-day. The wise old woman invents new ways of hair-dressing, and gives her married daughters lessons, in the superb manner, on the choice of hats and in the more difficult matter of wearing them when they are secured. Twenty years ago the ageing woman gave up the battle of life without a fight, and crept off to the fireside in faced lavender. To-day you cannot tell a woman is aged either by her manner or her dress, but if she is attired with becoming youthfulness and is

suspiciously young and fresh in her range I of ideas and her manner of speech, yot: may "begin to suspect she has passed seventy, and is really hiding the approach of her eightieth birthday. The old woman has become used to the horror and injustice implied !by being a .woman. She has probably done her share of leading revolutions and accomplishing a man's work infinitely better than he ever did it himsplf. She wins .her way to youth by her age, and in the end the old woman, becomes the young woman, because she takes up the charming things younger women are neglecting in their haste to be manly. She knows that the beautiful trappings which have decked women through all the ages and made their passage a riotous procession of color in a world that can be odiously drab may once have symbols of slavery, but under certain conditions can be turned into signs of freedom and power. She has begun to take up when she needs it most the neglected weapon of her sex, and to use it with a new understanding and authority which her younger sisters are now too 'busily engaged to attempt to acquire until, in their turn, they find themselves growing old.''