WOMAN'S WORLD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5656, 29 August 1896, Page 3

WOMAN'S WORLD.

The widowed Queen of Naples is the only Lady Knight of the Russian Order of St George, an honour conferred solely for exceptional gallantry under fire.

The Queen has sanctioned the appointment to the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in England, to be Lady of Justice, the Countess of Lathom ; to be Lady of Grace, Viscountess Galway.

It is said (remarks a London paper) there are 120,000 young women employed in public-houses, who work from fifteen to eighteen hours a day. Miss Hicks, of the London Tailoresses' Union, says that women tailors earn from 5s to 9s a week by working long hours.

A Bill before the New York Legislature proposes to levy a tax upon the dowries of women who marry foreign noblemen in that State, or whoso dowry is paid out of revenues of property there. It is calculated that the States would realise an income of .£2,000,000 annually from this source.

Among the recently disinterred manuscripts of Chariot be Bronte, has beenfoixnd a fairy tale, entitled " The Adventures of Edwin and Alembcrt." It is a curious and remarkable anticipation of Mr Ruskin's "The King of the Golden River." Mr Ruskin has read the story, and pronounces it finer than his own.

Orrand Prix day was the most brilliant that Paris lias seen for a long time. Two phenomena in. connection with it deserve notice, the lady bicyclist's jewelled anklet, of which a number were to be seen, and the lady bookmaker, who almost dominated the course. The lattter, says the correspondent of the Sunday Times, is becoming a strange, hoarae and hommasse creature. Her satchel hangs down by her side, and

she is too obese to convey the notion of a fair bicyclist. The ex-Empress Eugenic though now well advanced in years, still affects hats, particularly when in the South of France, where she wears a wide, shady hat, trimmed with black muslin and gossamer. When in this country she wears, when driving or walking, a becoming boat shape of fine straw chip or felt, trimmed with plain but handsome materials, never feathers. A wreck on the Baltimore and Ohio South Western railway was averted recently by Mary Och, a nine year old girl of Portsmouth, Ohio, who, finding an obstruction on the track, crawled across a high trestle bridge and built a fire on the track, which warned the train hands, who stopped the train — which was crowded with passengers —in time to prevent a disaster. Englishwomen are much wanted in South Africa. A gentleman who has resided there for many years lately remarked, that the greatest need at the Cape was for good, sensible women, with the high ideals of the typical Englishi gentlewoman ; and that if all the gentlemen who made such a fiasco there lately had been married men, the whole trouble would have been averted. Apropos of the present popularity of Wagner, it is said that "Souls" (that ultra-smart and intellectual society guided by Sirs Asquith and Mr Balfour) have changed the good old game of grab into a severely classical game, and instead of crying out " Snap," as of yore, each player must sing a bar out of the " Meistersiuger !" The effect, as regards harmony, outdistances any effect of V\ r agner's. It is rather a striking fact that in the examinations held at Oxford recently — during the groat examination week of the University year— the faintiugs and similar demonstrations supposed to be peculiarly feminine, were entirely confined to the masculine candidates. The women students went through the ordeal nobly from a physical point of view, while one man collapsed suddenly in a dead faint, and several retired temporarily, overcome in a lesser degree by similar weakness. Mis 3 Florence Pullman, daughter of the Mr George M. Pullman whose railway car works at Chicago were the scene of the great strike of 1894, has just married a young Chicago lawyer — Frank Orren Lowden— who has both fame and wealth to win in his profession. Miss Pullman Avas the only unmarried daughter of the car builder, and is enormously rich. Her name has several times been associated with foreign counts and the smaller fry of European nobility, but she has made a love match after all. The Grecian waist is coming, says a writer in the Gentlewoman, and the sooner j the better tor all. Parisian dressmakers are already measuring the inches round of Venus of Milo, the Pallas, and Diana ; and sternly forbidding their fair clients to adopt any sash or corselet band one inch wider than those Hellenic dames would have approved. The anxious expression of face, red nose, and flat chest brought in during the reign of terror of tightlacing are to become things of the past. Mrs Craigie, known to fame as " John Oliver Hobbes " and Mrs Jack Johnson, " Levana " of the Gentlewoman, are (says the Home Neivs) to be congratulated, in their x*espective capacities of president and hon. sec. of the Society of women journalists, on the brilliant successful birthday party given by the Society on Midsummer Night by the generous permission of the Duchess of Sutherland at Stafford House — one of the most splendidly appointed mansions in London. The guests numbered some of the elite of the world of writers, including Mr Arthur Balfour and Lord Eosebery, and a delightful programme, combined with the art treasures of the house, to absorb the interest of the guests. It was an ideal function.

In " Woman under Monasticism," Lina Eckenstein gives an interesting account of the position women occupied before the Eeformers taught that maiTiage and motherhood was the only respectable career for them. Those whose regard the New Woman with horror will be surprised t6 learn that so many centuries ago sex was not considered a disqualification for honourable posts. As an Abbess a woman had a great career if she had sufficient energy and ability. Thus Bede says of Arlfiaed, Hilda's successor at Whitby, that she was " ever the comforter and counsellor of the whole province." When the King of Kent granted an important charter to the churches and monasteries of his kingdom, no less than five abbesses affixed their signatures.