LADIES' COLUMN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5861, 1 May 1897, Page 3

LADIES' COLUMN.

SLAVONIC WOMEN. (New York Sim.) Though Slavonia is in Austria, or, rather, in the south of Hungary, its people are chiefly Servian. It is a dreary country, its plains stretching for miles in an almost endless expanse of perfectly flat country, while mud soem3 to cover them for the greater part of the year. The women's task -of scouring and fighting the mud brought into the houses is an everlasting one, and reduces them to mere drudges. Their utensils are exceedingly clumsy and primitive. Among the worst of tbeae is the mangle, which is a stout plank about seven feet long, raised upon rough-hewn legs to a height of two feet. The middle Of the plank is gripped by a framework rising from the floor to a height of five feet, with/three great beams running across it, tho whole fastened together with pegs. Upon the plank are laid two rollers, and on these rests a half log of wood, just fitting between the sides of the frame. This weight is smcoth on its under surface, rough hewn wood above, and is provided at each end with three pegs, which serve as handles. When "the laundress is ready to begin she takes, for instance, a sheet, and winds it tightly around one of the rollers putting an old ironing cloth around the outside. Then lifting one end of the log and placing the roller under 'it, she works the weight to and' fro, until the wrinkles are all presumably smoothed away. Then the sheet is removed, folded and put away, and the next " ironing " — perhaps another sheet or three or four towels, or half a dozen handkerchiefs — substituted. The second roller acts merely to balance the log, although two ironers can work the machine, one at each end. Starched things are not worn in Slavonia, and a finelylaundered shirt front would be regarded with wonder and admiration by these simple people. ■ The costume of the peasant woman is ugly and ungainly, and cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be called picturesque. Her shoes are flat and heelless, she has no stockings, but winds linen about her loAver legs and binds it in place with thongs, leaving a space of two inches or so bare below the edge of her kilted skirt of coarse, undyed linen. Her yellow sheepskin jacket is ornamented with patches of red and purple leather, quilted on with bright yarns', and her head is covered with, a gaudy kerchief. This, it must be remembered, is her Sunday finery, for, when engaged in her week-day labours, the Slavonic woman wears nondescript garments as shapeless and bedraggled as anything that can be imagined.