WOMAN'S WORLD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9273, 27 June 1908, Page 3

WOMAN'S WORLD.

The most expensive laoe manufactured today is valued at £1000 a yard. In Dutch G-uiana the ■women carry upon their persons aX the family savings in the shape of heavy bracelets, ankleto. necklaces, and even crowns of gold and silver. Paris modistes, having exhausted the possibilities of decorating hats with flo^J 6 * Bfruits, and feathers, have been compelled to look elsewhere for novelties, and have decided to see wha-t they can make of the produce of the kitchen garden. First experiments are to be made with tomatoes, arid if fche idea takes on the encumber ana parsnip will follow. In the streets of London there are only five statues to women. Four of these are qurens, and the fifth is Mrs Siddons, whosa statue as the Tragic Muse is in P&ddington Green. In the matter of memorial tablets women fare to better, as out of fully 100 affixed to houses where celebrated people dwelt only four have women's names upon them. These commemorate Fanny Burney (Madame iyArblay), Joanna Bailfie. EOrieabeth Barrett Browning, and Mrs Siddons. Madame Pauline Donalda gives readers of the " Girl's Realm " some good advioe on " How to Succeed as a Singer." She emphasises the need for a strong constitution. She cays:— "An opera career is one of the most wearing of careers a woman can enter upon. I 6peak from experience. Thank goodness I'm gifted with perfeot health; my nerves are yet to find, but, all the same, sometimes after singing through a long opera I feel like the proverbial owl in the gooseberry bush! I'm quite tired out often and often by the time the curtain is rung down on the lost scene. What a delicate girl would feel like I can't imagine." The German Crown Princess possesses a most original necklace. It w composed of all the little Easter egg trinkets which she has received since her birth. It is the | habit in Kussia among the members of the Imperial Family to exchange jewels at Easter. The Crown Princess, who, by her mother, the Grand Duchess Anastaaia, has a Russian • origin, has received a quantity of th©3e trinkets, all of them shaped like Easter eggs. They are marvels of workmanship, and most of them are no larger than a pea. They are strung on a thin gold chain. Lord Aberdeen and his wife, dining at a house remarkable even among Canadian homes, were waited on by so trim a parlourmaid that he could not resist complimenting the hpstesa on her training. "Oh I" she said, " I am" so glad you think /Jane did so well ; I should like you to tell her so presently " ; and when that presently came, Jane, Arrayed in evening dress, proved to be the daughter of the hostess, who, in consequence of the unexpected departure of the servant, had cooked the meal with the assistance of her mother. In this case the servant problem had presented itself in a very awkward form, but it brought the solution with it This year women visitors to London ■ w3i find near the Haymarket a Travel Bureau and Couriers' Association, ' organised and staffed entirely .by gentlewoman. The London Ladies' Courier Association is a mutual cooperative organisation limited to fifty members, all of whom must be gentlewomen, speaking one or mare foreign Languages, and ready to go anywhere. In England special attention is to be paid to Old London, which Americans are always anxious to see. The Association will do ordinary couriers' work, such as taking rooms, looking after baggage and interpreting. Complete rest on Sundays will be insisted upon, and each courier will be paid the same salary as a man would receive. The Dowager Duchess of Newcastle has taken up her abode permanently amongst the poor of the East End, and has given, up her fine mansion in Mayfair, where she had resided for some months of each year. The duchess, who for some years past has led «. strenuous life amongst the poorer denizens of Whitechapel, will henceforth, it is said, devote herself entirely to this work, and will reside at St Anthony's Settlement, which she founded a dozen years ago. At St Anthony's there ia little sign of the luxury usually associated with high social rank, the duchess's private apartments being marked by an almost monastic severity. The walls are plainly distempered, the floors covered with linoleum, and the furniture is of the simplest kind, while the adornments of the rooms consist mainly of religious' paintings and statuary. The village of Seravalle, in the province of Florence, long reputed to be one of the most dissolute towns in Italy, has been reformed by an " affection strike. The men of the village were accustomed to spend their money in drinkirg and gambling, and there were continual quarrels. Last November, on the initiative of the wife of the Mayor, the vomen. discussed re-nedies, and resolved to boycott love-making until the rnfcn refornied. The young unmarried ladies dismissed their lovers and postponed their marriages. At first the men mocked the women, but the latter were relentless, and finally the men began to reform. At last the looal publican closed his bar x owing to the falling-off of trade, and sixteen couples gave in their wedding banns. The parish priest is arranging to turn tie former public-lw* 0 * into a looal library.