WOMEN WORKERS IN SWEDEN.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1934, Page 17 (Supplement)

WOMEN WORKERS IN SWEDEN.

EFFORTS OF READJUSTMENT. (By Elisabeth Kyle.) Only within these past few years has it become accepted with us that women of social position may earn their own living. Even so, the effort of readjustment which many women have been obliged to make —the clear break between old habits of luxury and new habits of industry—has in many cases left its mark in strained faces, . broken friendships, and somewhat boring reminiscences inflicted upon long-suffering friends. But in the small northern capitals of Europe, it had become a commonplace, even before the war, for women of noble family to go to work. Nor was any pity wasted on them for doing so. It took a little time for the young attaches at our Embassies to grasp this. Imagine the surprise of a well-bred Englishman of pre-war vintage, on entering a Swedish bank the morning after a State ball, to find one of his most charming partners of the night before waiting to cash his cheque. The Children’s Nurse.

I know, too, of a young Swedish countess, whose father’s castle is one of the show places in her country, but whose family means were so straitened that, wishing to visit England and despairing of getting there by any other means, she went as children’s nurse. The fact’ would be scarcely worth recalling were it not for, the casual way in which it is mentioned by her friends. “Stasit has gone to be a nurse in London” they say, and leave it at that. Her Background.

Another charming Swedish girl is the daughter of a famous diplomat, but she lives in two small rooms overlooking the harbour. The rooms are crammed with French and Swedish Empire furniture, and the fair haired owner keeps her supplies of cake and coffee in an old armoire from a comer of her grandmother’s castle. The little table at which she eats her nieals has gilded feet and fine marble inlay (which, incidentally, she tells me, stand up to “spills” and too-hot plates nobly). And the walls of her tiny tiled bathroom are hung with fine old engravings in their original frames. She has managed to preserve the dignified background which belonged to a long line of distinguished ancestors. She has not struggled to forget, nor to cast it behind her in a whirl of modernism, and protesque decorations. Every morning she makes her coffee in the electric pot standing on the tiny shelf in the hall, and leaves for her office. She takes a good mid-day meal at a restaurant, and by evening is back again oh her own ground, ready to preside over the charming little parties she gives. Then coffee and sandwiches are placed on the marble inlay table, while the lights from the old glass chandelier shine down on groups of friends who have “dropped in.” THE HOUSEWIFE’S NOTE-BOOK. Use for Stale Bread. . When preparing hash, or stew, or anything that requires thi.ckening, place some pieces of stale bread on top while cooking and, on removing from the fire, beat the bread into the hash. This makes a perfect thickening, and does not stick to the saucepan or give the raw flour taste that is sometimes noticeable in flour-thickened foods. Home Carpentry. Wood veneer on furniture often becomes loose. It is an easy matter to apply glue to the back of the loosened section and press it into place again. Any glue that oozes to the surface may be wiped off with a damp cloth. For Needleworkers.

This arrangement of embroidery threads is a great time saver. Put the threads between the pages of a small magazine, or note-book, using a separate page for each shade. Let an end of each skein protrude from the magazine, to make it easy to locate the desired colour. The shades may be arranged in rainbqw order, making it doubly easy to find the right one. Corks That Stick.

Rub glycerine or vaseline over corks in bottles containing glue, polishes, cements and other sticky substances, so that there will be no difficulty in removing them. Protect Your Pillows.

By making muslin slips to fit over them. Sew them on and put on the ordinary pillow slips. When the sewed-on-covers are soiled, they can be easily ripped off and washed, thus saving the pillow ticking.

< THE PLEDGE AND THE TOAST. CHANGES OF THE TIMES. In ' the past there was a very great difference between the pledge and the toast. Both were drunk in wine, and both had their origin in religious ceremony. To drink to an enterprise or to a friend was, in distant times, to drink in communion with the gods who always favoured wine as the emblematic link between themselves and mortals. To-day we drink to the health of our friends as a sort of social habit, and we call it a toast. During the festive season “toasts” are plentiful, and it seems the moment to delve a little into a curious custom. Pledge of Protection. The pledge was instituted during the eleventh century. The toast came into fashion in the reign of Queen Anne and was a purely social affair. The pledge was a guarantee to protect a friend while drinking. Times were rough and dangerous, and the Danes, who were masters of England, thought nothing of stabbing a man while he was in the act of drinking. When a man drank at table, or on horseback after the chase, his eyes could not follow the movement of his neighbour’s hand, so he became easy prey. In Timon of Athens, Shakespeare says, “If I were a large man I should fear to drink at meals lest they should spy my windpipe’s dangerous notes. Great men should drink with harness on their throats.” There were no stiff collars in those days; shirts and coats were cut open at the neck. So much for the pledge. The toast was quite a different matter. It was an old custom to put a roasted apple or pear in a hot drink such as spiced ale. This was called the toast, and was similar to the cherry in the cocktail of to-day. Another custom was to put a piece of toasted bread in homemade wine to help it to ferment. But in the reign of Queen Anne the toast became a lady! It is said that in the days of Charles 11. a certain beau, being at Bath, pledged a celebrated beauty of the day in a glass of water taken from her bath, whereupon a gay young fellow swore that he did not care for the liquor, but he would most certainly like the toast. ■ This caused an uproar, but from this beginning came the formal toast. “Toast” for "a Year.

In the reign of Queen Anne it was the aim' of every maiden leaving school to become a toast—that is to say sufficiently witty or beautiful to have her name mentioned by the men ,of her set when they drank. A “toast” was sometimes elected by vote, and in this case she became a toast for a year and her admirers expressed extravagant praise every time her name was mentioned. The celebrated “toasts”—the great and powerful beauties who reigned for years —sometimes had their names scratched with a diamond on the drinking glasses, and numerous were the poems written about them by their admirers. .

Lady Sunderland, a daughter of the Duke of Marlborough, was the toast of her party, and her nickname, “Little Whig,” was so famous that it was cut on the foundation stone ,of Sir John Vanbrugh’s theatre in the Haymarket.