WOMAN'S WORLD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5357, 7 September 1895, Page 3

WOMAN'S WORLD.

I The Piinoesa of Wales is taking up ' spinning as a pastime. Vassar College, United States, has sent out the largest class in the history of the institution, a hundred young women receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. A Ladies Art Society haß been formed in Wales, under the presidency of Lady Augusta Mostyn, as an effective proteßt against sex exclusiveness. There are upwards of fifty members, and the first exhibition has already been Held. On a recent Sunday the palpits of no less than one hundred and seventy-five London chapels and miesion-balls were given over to women. The preachers included Mrs Ormiston Chant, Mrs Pearaall Smith, and Lady Henry Somerset. There is a training school for nurserymaids in New York. It was founded five years ago by Mrs Robert Chapin, and its influence is already large. Many young women and inexperienced mothers take courses of lessons at the Bohool with the most excellent results. Miss Margaret Sinolair, of Clapton, London, wbb presented recently with a purie of sovereigns by the police of the Hackney division, for assisting a policeman to arrest a man after the latter had stabbed the constable with a dagger. Tue man grew weak from loss of blood, and hiß assailant would have escaped but for Miss Sinclair, who detained him till another constable arrived on the spot. A Scottish paper says that the nativea of Skye now use knives to spread their butter, but that one old lady declines to go to parties where she is not allowed, according to the old habit of the Island, to spread her butter with her thumb. Another inhabitant of the island was heard deolaring to a friend the other day that having sold his horse he must now get a wife to do the spring tillage. Miss Eltoft, the New York woman deeeotive, is a cultivated English-woman. She ia alight and fair, and has received her education on the' Continent, where for two years ahe was a pupil of Paderewski's master. Her. family met with reverses of fortune, and having accidentally discovered her talent for detective work she hai adopted it as a profession. She liken it, and aays that experience, courage and a dear head are '^indispensable for women detectives. * -> The youngest Poor Law Guardian in Great Britain is Mies A. B. Evans, daughter of the Vicar of Abergele. She is just twenty-one, and has plenty of common sense. She is noti a New Woman, bnt she has done a great deal of parish work and knows all the ihs-and-onts of the life of the poor. She believes that muoh can be done for the deserving poor by ladies who havt timet o visit and see for themselves withont leaving everything to the Believing Officer. Mrs Bellamy Storer, the wife of Congressman Storer, o! Cincinnati, is said to have the most complete private pottery oolleotion posaeßßed by any woman. She was the originator of theEockford Works in Cincinnati, and her pottery studio in Washington contains everything, from the clay mixtures for those works whiob. Btand about j in great jars to the finest tools for the J business. Mrs Storer oasts her own pieoes, . fires them in a beautiful kiln, deoorates the clay in original designs, glaies and fires to a finish. In some respects English women are in advance of American women. All women who are householders, that is, who maintain a home, and have no male ' representative, are allowed to vote in municipal affairs. They are eligible for positions on school boards, as guardians of the poor, and on district and parish oonncils. The women use their privileges. Nearly all women vote who are allowed to do so. There are women's liberal and conservative clubs for advancement both politically and intellectually. Professor Max Muller, of Oxford, confesses that at first he was opposed to girls' colleges, bnt he now concedes they are a great success, "It is a real pleasure to me, he says, to see the yonng girls so eager to learn. Most young men do as little as they can ; young women do as much as they can— too muoh, indeed. Again, they work more systematically, and their knowledge is better arranged. It tends wonderfully to the improvement of the whole of their character. I wish the men could be shamed and spurred on to further effort." M. Daudet, it seems— though the news is somewhat belated — » anxious that it should be known in England that he was not guilty of the silly depreciation of English women put into his mouth by a Paris pressman. He has asked Mr B. H. Sheravd to contradict it formally, which Mr Sherard doss in hie "Notee from Paria" in the Author. The imaginative reporter was among the many whom Mt Daudet was unable to receive, bo he invented an interview and put the offending remarks into the novelist's mouth. What M. Daudet did say, and to another reporter, was that he preferred the way Prenoh ladies dressed. In Hnllftnrt one frequently ace* watchworr>n.i «vi.-.-i; ••,,.- <\,., , .',t wa y crossings and waving ihe signal, m«iiead of men. But one soon grows accustomed to this scene, Md one. c|if »

pleasant smile upon the buxom mein vrow. One of the oddest occupations for women is that of street car conductor, whioh is universal in Chili. In that conntry men are employed in what we consider solely women's Bphere, and hire out as chambermaids, cooks, housemaids, dishwashers and caretakers, while the women of ability are employed as hotel clerks, poßtoffice olerks, ana managers of large meroantile establishments. The Amosbury Town Improvement Society has placed a tablet on the spot where stood the house of Goody Martin, the scene ol Whittiet'a poem, "The Witch's Daughter." The tablet bears the following inscription : " Here stood the house of Susannah Martin, an honest, hard-working woman, accused as a witch, tried and executed at Salem, July 19, 1692. A martyr of superstition." There is no prouder family in Boston than the Nonrses, one of whose ancestral great-great-grand-mother s was also hanged as a witch. The martyr's crown becomes a coronet for future generations, as truly now as in the times of Huguenot and Quaker pentcutions. A. Frenchwoman of fashion haß invented a beautiful shade for electric lights. She got her* inspiration frca the falling of a sunbeam on a beaded Japanese screen, and, full of the idea, she summoned an electrician for experiments. The shades were drawn, the beaded Japanese cloth was thrown around the bulb of an incandescent lamp, and when the current was turned on the effect was exquisite. The light was split into a thousand shafts of coloured radiance. An attachment was produce^ after the design of the Japanese cloth, and the new shade at once became the rage. An American electrioian who took the idea to America haß improved on it by using bulb covers in imitation of grapes, purple and yellow, and of flowers glistening with dewdrops. The upper circles in Busaia at first looked upon the young Tsarina's expressions of interest in the education of women as a mere passing fad. Now, by her husband's orders, her Majesty is furnished by the Director-General of education with periodical reports on the work done in the Empress Maria Institution, which was founded by the Dowager Empress for the advancement of female education in Russia, i When that important functionary pieI sented his first report in person the young Empress proceeded to crois-examine him closely on the details of the work, and soon discovered that he knew nothing of it. The director now finds himself in a somewhat awkward position, having made an elaborate report on the present work of a certain educational institution whioh he has since learnt was abolished more than two years ago. The bridal veil worn by the Princess He*iene of Orleans was of a unique design and a marvel of exquisite beauty. It is the product of the most skilful workers at Bayenx, and is a scarf of the finest white 1 Chantilly lace fully four yards long. The ' lower edge haß a broad floral border, the ' pattern decreasing in size till the portion worn on the head oonsistß merely of fragile meshwork. The centre is quite plain, but 1 on the part which fell over the train are ; two graceful branches uniting in a wreath of flowers. The novelty of the design is I that in the centre of the wreath are embroidered in heraldic colours the arms of tbe two families in Point d'Alengon. On one side is the white oross of Savoy in silver, and on the other the golden lilies of ' the house of Orleans on a field azure. The 1 crown of the Princes of Savoy surmounts ' the whole. The effect of the colours in the ' midst of the fine foamy lace is described as 1 singularly beautiful.