CHIT-CHAT,

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 25, 20 June 1891, Page 90

CHIT-CHAT,

The prettiest stockings are worn on slippery days. Black ages any woman past thirty by deepening the lines in her face. Certain lines come with time and time forms character, but a woman is not obliged to advertise her age. It is a very pretty finish to fancy slippers to use small gold or silver buckles on the vamp. A pairof simple buckles is not very expensive and you can change them from one pair of slippers to another as you may desire. No bath is considered complete in which a bag does not float. The contents depend upon the resources of the bather. Almond meal, bran, orris root, crushed lavender flowers, borax and shaved castile soap are some of the accessories approved by fashion. A petition, signed by 2,800 Greek ladies, has been presented to King George, demanding the establishment of ladies’ colleges, in which they may be trained in commercial and industrial pursuits, so as to be enabled to compete with the sterner sex in the battle of existence. The latest fad among the equestriennes is to ride one day to the left side, the next to the right. Since Mrs JennessMiller sounded a trumpet and informed women they were in danger of growing lopsided by not riding man-fashion there has been much anxiety felt over the situation of affairs. The physicians and the foreign barons who run our riding academies have evolved this panacea for onesidedness. When your best young man is coming to see you, you will want your mouth and chin to be as piesentable as possible. Prepare them after this fashion : Rinse the mouth thoroughly with camphor and water. Then rub alcohol lightly upon the lips and chin, rub hard with the towel, treat to a wash of perfumery, and rub the lips with a rough cloth and then again with perfumery. Now, rinse the mouth with Wintergreen or any sweet-smelling herb. Princess Oscar Bernadotte is, like the Queen Regent of Holland, very partial to white for her children, who are seldom dressed in any other colour. In her case, the expense of a laundress, which to us less favoured mortals would be an important consideration, is probably smaller than the cost of silk or velvet frocks would be. Certainly white is most suitable and prettiest for children. How charming a golden-haired maiden in pure white fur from head to foot would look ! The latest change in the appointments for the five-o’clock tea is the brass tea-table. These are made in the highly polished and dull brass, and in fashionable houses have displaced the bamboo and highly polished wood table. Covered with a handsome embroidered tea-cloth they add an attractive bit of colour to a room. The tea-table is no longer confined to the reception or family room, but is frequently found in the fashionable boudoir.' ’ “ If any of your hats are not quite to your taste as regards becomingness or style, don’t abandon them or even worry any longer. Simply purchase the largest red rose with the largest stem possible and a single bunch of green leaves and stick straight up on the very back of your hat. On a windy day it will look like a revolving lamp in a lighthouse, but you head gear will be according to the latest whim in millinery. A lady dentist is now no novelty, and one in London lately practises most successfully, and enjoys the confidence and gratitude of her patients. She has great patience, and treats her clients with kindness and sympathy, charging according to their circumstances. This'lady wishes to find an assistant, and would do her best to give the needful instruction. Ghildren especially are in fear of a visit to the dentist but the terrible chair would lose half its terrors if a lady were the operator. J The hygienic girl sheds all her clothes at night and puts on a night wrap to take the place of the garments that she has worn during the day. The day garments are hung up and aired and put on in the morning fresh and sweet and unjaded by a night’s personal association with the body The union undergarments that extend from ankle to chin are doing a good work in this respect, compelling the nightly exchange. Night gowns are heavy, warm and thick, and very similar to bath robes in fashion. It is poor taste to wear bows and gee-gaws at the neck of night dresses. They do not enhance the beauty rf a simple toilet. A very desirable and sensible fashion was started some time ago in regaid to the christening gifts from godparents When a child is christened it is the proper thing for one of the godparents to give a teaspoon, and to announce the intention of repeating the gift on each anniversary until the dozen is complete, then to begin to give some other kind of spoon. By carrying out this idea, by the time a girl is launched in society, engaged and married, she will have quite a store of silver, endeared by association. If the child is a boy, after the first gift of a piece of silver the anniversary is to be remembered with the presentation of a gold coin. Jenness-Miller awoke one day to find herself famous. In a brilliant, scintillating moment she thought of devising a gown with adjustable waist and skirt, warranted to fit all figures thiough all the fluctuations and variations of increasing adipose. A word to the Jenness-Miller dressmaker and the gown was fashioned. When first made it looks quiet, dignified, and ordinary, a sleepy sort of dress that no one would look at twice. But arouse that frock, and it is awake all over. A little rubber band loosens the sleeves the collar becomes freer in the same beautiful way. The waist knows a marvellous elasticity by means of ribbons and bands and tapes, and as for the front of the skirt, there is absolutely no limit to its adaptability. The woman has yet to be found who by any feat of prowess can get beyond the compass of this all-encompassing garment. Suiely the halcyon days have come. It is time once more to be plunged in darkness, and left to grope our way back into the light of modern improvements. The full blaze of this last new glory will be overcoming and overpowering to the world of women.