Men and Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue XVIII, 31 October 1896, Page 584

Men and Women.

THE woman who rests every day is the woman who keeps young and fresh. If she is a woman of leisure she may indulge in an afternoon nap, after which she will rival her daughter in usefulness. If she is a busy housewife she should snatch at least half-an-hour a day for lying still in a darkened room. If she is a business woman she must break into the afternoon with the only sort of rest she can command—sitting still for ten or fifteen minutes, with eyes closed, thoughts banished, and muscles relaxed. * Which advice,’ some old bachelor remarks, * not one woman in 500 would think of doing, nor could not if she would.’

When a Parisian doctor is called upon to attend a new patient, even though the case be a most urgent one, he first consults a book, fittingly bound in black, and if he finds the sick person’s name recorded there he declines to go. For in this ‘ black book ’is a list of the names of those who have received medical services, but who, though pecuniarily able, have refused to pay their doctor’s bill. The book is issued by the great medical society of Paris, whose members have agreed to observe strictly the rules, which came into effect the first of the present year. These rules provide that each physician shall keep a careful record, which he shall forward to the officers of the society at stated intervals, of the names of those whom he has attended who have refused to pay him his fee.

Captain Deasy, an English army officer, who is trying to cross Thibet from west to east, is going to make a curious attempt to solve the mystery of the final outlets of the Thibetian rivers. He will throw soldered tin cans into the chief streams he meets, inclosing in them notices written in French and English on parchment, in the hope that they will be picked up in the lower waters of the Brahmaputra, Salween or Mekong. Have you heard of the ‘Newer Women Clubs?’ Three are already established in America, and there are rumours that one is shortly to be started in London. To the uninitiated the name will conjure up terrible visions of ladies who smoke cigars, drink brandies and sodas, and discuss socialism until the small hours of the morning. The uninitiated are altogether wide of the mark. The Newer Woman represents a ‘ fortunate reaction from the ephemeral craze.’ Her club room is cheery with the clatter of tongues and teaspoons, and the joyous laughter of wholesome womanhood. Her subjects are mundane ; her ‘ corners ’ are * cosy ;’ she has no desire to subjugate man, save by her sweetness of disposition and sympathy. And she has no Bills before the Legislature. The Newer Woman promises well. Let us dance her a welcome.

Manners are said to be degenerating rapidly. People flock to certain houses now for the sake of the supper or the entertainment, but do not hesitate to criticise their host and hostess in unmeasured terms. Indeed, this is so common as to escape being regarded as bad form. ‘Marmaduke,’ of 7’rufA, gave currency to the following conversation the other week :—■ At a recent ball—Lady A. to Lady B. : “ My dear, how could you go down to supper with that man ?” ’ ‘ That man ’ was their host! Why did Lady A. accept his hospitality, and eat his supper, if these were her sentiments regarding him ?

Sir John Millais is said to have achieved the distinction of bequeathing nearly a quarter of a million in personality, which is by far the largest fortune ever accumulated by an artist wholly by his art. Prince Max, the nephew of King Albert of Saxony, who was recently consecrated to the Roman Catholic priesthood, after officially renouncing the right to the succession as a Prince of the Royal House, will begin his ecclesiastical career in England.

Through the imperative demands of motherhood, woman became the first physician, the first agriculturist, the first domesticator of animals—in a word, by virtue of the sacred functions and obligations of motherhood, woman, as the inventor and promotor of the arts of peace, rose to the highest plane of moral and intellectual supremacy. So, instead of operating as a desirability, maternity became the inspiring motive of home and family life; passion was transformed into domestic love, and the rugged pathway to civilisation strewn with the flowers of sentiment and emotion.

Ensign Brodie of the Salvation Army in India, was recently tried and condemned to seven years’ imprisonment for homicide, committed in a street dispute. An interesting feature of the case was the fact that the presiding Judge was a native and a Mohammedan. Choosing a wife is a difficult matter. About nine out of ten fail. Marry a really good girl, who is not ashamed to do household work, or any other duties she may be called upon to perform. If she is pretty all the better. We like pretty girls ourselves, but we have seen too many marriages of mere beauty turn out badly to advise a man to choose a partner for life from the ranks of

belles. See that she has a good temper, and the best way to do this is to step wilfully on the tail of her Sunday gown. Then, if she looks daggers or flies into a tantrum, steer clear. Marry a girl who is not a mere household drudge, or she will prove a most uninteresting companion and drive you to your club. A woman out in Kansas seeks a divorce because her husband frequently wants corned beef and cabbage for dinner. She is aesthetic, and her soul thrills with delight at the twittering of the birds, but he, poor fellow, doesn’t even listen to the songsters, but wants to know if the corned beef and cabbage are on the table. What kind of a world is this, anyway ? A woman recently got her husband out of gaol on his promise to do the housework, cook, sweep, and take care of the children. She was herself busy earning money for the support of the family. ‘ Ladies are inveterate smugglers. In my opinion there is more smuggling done by stewardesses than by all the officers and men on board ships. A certain line of steamers runs from our port to Hamburg, and it is a part of my duty,’ observed a Customs House official the other day, ‘to devote special attention to these boats while they are on our side of the water. Some time ago I noticed that a particularly smartly-dressed stewardess made a rule of leaving her vessel soon after her arrival arrayed in a beautiful black silk dress, which seemed to hang in rather a peculiar way. I determined that on her next arrival in England I would have her searched by one of our lady searchers, and, much to her astonishment. for she had always passed me with a most amiable bow and smile, I sent for a lady searcher, who discovered that the black dress was one of the most elaborate smuggling machines ever invented. It was pleated from the waist downwards, and each pleat was so joined as to hold one pound of hard tobacco, on which the duty was about four shillings a pound.’ Mr Harry Lander tells us of a Failure Club, from which every member was ejected when he succeeded in life. It is interesting to remember, in this connection, that there was once a real Failure Club in Paris, and that every member of it subsequently succeeded. The name of the Society was ‘ Club des Auteurs Siffles,’ and the members of it used to dine together at a restaurant once a week, and discuss the advisability of retiring from literature and devoting their energies to commercial enterprise instead. Those members were Edmond de Goncourt, Gustave Flaubert, Tourgenieff, Alphonse Daudet, and Emile Zola.

The African Lakes Company has become so careful that it compels its agents to pay their own funeral expenses ; so many agents died that an order was actually issued compelling the agents to die at their own expense. For a long while the company has enjoyed a monopoly of trade.

Miss Beatrix Jones, of New York, has taken up the art of landscape gardening, and one can often find her arranging earth and giving directions to two crews of men who are at work under her direction at Reef Point, her Bar Harbour home. Miss Jones, who is a young woman, has taken the contract to put the rough grounds of W. H. Bliss, of New York, and Edgar Scott, the young Philadelphia millionaire, in trim for building.

Women were for the first time officially acknowledged to be members of the Government in the invitations sent out by the Queen to Princess Maud’s wedding. The list read : Members of the Government, Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the Marquis and Marchioness of Salisbury, Lord High Chancellor, the Lord and Lady Halsbury, Lord President of the Council, the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, and so on.

The recent discovery that a French nobleman has been working as a * docker ’ in London recalls similar instances to a journal of that city. The Marquis de Beaumanoir is a labourer at a flour mill near Nantes; the Comte de St. Pol is a gas bill collector ; the Vicomte de St. Megrin drives a cab in Paris ; the Baron d’Aubinals and the Vicomte de Menoliers are employed as searchers in French custom houses ; the Marquis de Poligny is an omnibus conductor; and the servant who waits on M. Dore is a Marquis, who prefers to pass under the name of Emile, but whose real name is Gaspard. He can trace his direct descent for 1200 years.