WOMAN'S WORLD.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 9919, 6 August 1910, Page 4

WOMAN'S WORLD.

Soma Japanese women adopt , the singular habit of gilding their teeth. In some parts of India the pearl of the tooth must be dyed' black before a woman is thought beautiful. The Hottentot women paint the entire body in patches of red. and black. In. Greenland the women colour their faces b-ue and yellow.

Hiss Lucy Salmon, professor of history at Vassar College, has just been chosen by the Chamber of Commerce- of Poughkeepsia to head the committee to clean up the town. Miss Salmon is. said to intend to make an energetic campaign against untidy backyards, unsightly -vacant _ lota and other blots on Community oleanlinesa.

Dr Marion Parris presided at the congress of woman interested in agriculture, 'which was recently held at Bryn Mawr College. Women with praotical experience spoke on their experiments in general fanning, fruit growing, landscape gardening, bee-keeping, pouury raising, dairy farming, truck gardening ana horticulture. Tho general opinion seemed to be that women could ordinarily carry on successfully any of these branches with a. profit of from 10 to 20 per cent.

. The latest women's club in London is the "Blue Birds," so called, apparently, in honour of Maeterlinck's popular play. Thoy meet at stated intervals, but seem to avoid publicity, as none of their proceedings have yet been given to an inquisitive world. _ The main point of the club that has accordingly been discerned so far ia a look and smile of supremo happiness as they approach or leave the rendezvous, so it is presumed that they have snared tlio elusive Bluo Bird in some unexplained way.

Mrs Campbell Baubney, writing in the " Contemporary Review," says that the symptoms of opium-eating may be seen in a hundred small children's faces any day in Kensington Park. A London physician, writing in the " Daily Mirror," heartily joined Mrs Daubney in her denunciation of well-to-do mothers, who allow unprincipled nuTses to stop babies from crying bv rubbing their nails with opium. The child sucks its fingers and sleeps. Six months cf this _ insidious practice will make a child neurotic, nervous and listless for life.

Edward Hutton, in his " Cities of Spain, recalls tin interesting mediroval legend. B> gays:—"And as I listened to the rplendid syllables of the Castilian tongue that rang eloquently through tho twilight, I remembered the saying of that old Spanish doctor of whom James Howell tells us in his 'lnstructions for Forraine Travell," to wit, that Spanish, Italian and French, these three daughters of the Latin language, were spoken in Paradise; that God Almighty created the world in Spanish, the Tempter persuaded Eve in Italian, and 1 Adam begged pardon in French."

The friendship between the two jp-eat northern writers, Ibsen and Bjornson, was a deep reality in the 1110 of both, though tho grea-t political changes cf the time caused a long estrangement. In the time of stress, however, the eld feeling returned. Ib?en, on hearing of Bjcrnson's narrow escapo from death in America, said that if his old friend had died he himself could never have written again. Bjornson returned to uphold Ibsen through a storm of popular disapproval. Lastly tho friendship was cemented by the marriage of Ibsen's only son. to a daughter of Bjornson.

It has been an old superstition that tlie Black Lady of Windsor appears just before a royal death, but no one seems to have seen her since Queen \ictoria died. She is supposed to be the wraith of Que.en Llizabeth, and her appearance is always a forewarning of calamity. An officer on duty in a wing or Windsor' Cactlc in the nineties oi the last canturv tuvv on the walk beside him the Black Lady in the old-fashioned costume of the sixteenth century. For nearly a minute she litood beside him, and then vim;shed. She was supposed to appear again the month before Queen Victoria dice!.

•If tho Burmese husband and wife come to tho conclusion that they are not suited to each other, their prccecdure of divorce 13 simple and direct. The wife does not go to her solicitor, but to the tallow-chandler. From him she obtains two little candles. These sho brings home, and she and her husband sit down on the floor, placing tho candles between them. One candle represents tho husband, one the wife. They are lighted at tho name moment, and the owner of the one which goes out first leaves the house, tailing only his or her clothes while tho owner of tho more enduring candle remains o-lso the owner of the he use and all that thoreiu is.

We have read so much about the brushes between the police and the suffragists that it is a surprise to bear from Miss Matters that the women regard the London policemen as their very best friends. "They almost invariably apologise for arresting us," she says, " and most of them would join our men's league to-morrow if they were free. ,It is true that they sometimes break our arms and sprain our wrists as they hustle lis through the crowd, but that's because they don't realise how strong they are. And they aro just as amused as we are when five thousand >,4 them aro ordered out to keep a hundred or so of us in check. The men are better than the system.!'