BRITISH WOMEN IN CHILE

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1691, 26 November 1925, Page 7

BRITISH WOMEN IN CHILE

CLUB LIFE IMPORTANT. , Her club plays an important part in the life of a British woman in Chile. There, after tennis, golf, or hockey in the afternoon, she meets her friends over tea, to be joined by menfolk later over “ sundowners.” Jolly, impromptu affairs, these club recaptions, for a chat, a game of cards, a gramophone dance, meeting everyone and hearing all the news. Town life holds little else to British women, but the newcomer finds interest in the curious street cinemas. In some towns, for want of halls, the movie screen is put up across a road, the audience lounging on the near-by cafe plazas. Hospitality, club life, and horses—the social interests of British women in Chile —and those universal topics, the servant problem, how to vary the menus, and the prohibitive cost of clothes, provide inexhaustible tea-table talk.

The horsewoman need never find time hang upon her hands; in the larger towns, race meetings, polo matches and gymhk'anas followed by dinner and card parties and dances, are weekly events iwhich bring a train of country guests to the town houses. Races and polo are no less a feature of up-country life, and during tile spring race weeks every country house keeps open doors to all comers. Good hunting and shooting can be had on most up-country “ camps ” or farmsteads, and for the more adventurous the vast inland forests and the plains provide jaguar and puma shooting, deer and tapir hunting, and some of the best shooting in the world. . In the home the servant problem is acute. Wages are high, while a peasant who enters domestic service is, as a rule, incompetent, ignorant, lazy, and dirty. Some low-caste Chilean girls evince a pronounced dislike to wearing adequate clothing, preferring bare legs and feet, with a single diaphanous and rather grubby robe.

Good cooks are obtainable but difficult to keep, since once they become know they are bribed away to the kitchen of some wealthy Chilean family-

Food is plentiful and inexpensive, but lacks variety; beef, mutton, and veal are the only meats.

Fruit and vegetables are excellent and plentiful, and the country boasts some very fine light wines.

As in all British settlements abroad, clothing must be good and fashionable, and since everything is imported from Europe dress is a very expensive item. E.W.L., in the London Daily Mail.