Men and Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVIII, Issue XVIII, 1 May 1897, Page 537

Men and Women.

IT is an old theory that a man and bis wife grow like each other after a number of years, and that when they are in perfect sympathy and in close accord their mental likeness is transferred to the lines of their faces. Seldom has a more extraordinary case come to notice than in the faces of President McKinley and his invalid wife. Often in other cases the resemblance is of that fleeting, intangible sort which belongs to the soul rather than to actual flesh, but in Mrs McKinley’s case the cold and calculating camera can catch the wonderful similarity. But, after all, this phenomenon is not inexplicable. It is easily accounted for when one knows the life of complete sympathy and understanding which the two have led. Since their marriage in 1871 they have scarcely ever been separated. Never once, when private or political business has compelled him to leave her, has he neglected to send her three telegrams a day—one at early morning, another at the dinner hour, and another to say good-night—so that her first and last thoughts of the day should be the knowledge that, in the busy scenes of life, he did not forget her. Little wonder that their lives being cast in the same mould their features should partake of the same character. An undertaking that should commend itself favourably to the notice of ladies has recently been started in London. The founders of the Maison Desiree have for their main object the provision of regular employment during the slack season for well conducted and steady workgirls, the irregularity of whose engagements at the West-end dressmaking establishments expose them to the risks and hardships of many weeks of enforced idleness in the course of each year. The first branch of the undertaking has been opened at 35, Church-street, Kensington, and others will speedily be opened atHarlesden, in North London, and in Edinburgh. In Kensington alone over forty girls are kept steadily at work, the result being a rapidly accumulating stock, which is being offered to purchasers at extraordinarily low prices. Well-cut costumes, for morning and afternoon wear, and gowns for evening wear, of the best material and in the latest styles, are being sold at standard prices ranging from one and a-half to three guineas, which prices, considering the workmanship and the material used, are unusually low. The Emperor and Empress of Germany have decided to give a costume ball to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late Emperor William I. All the dresses and uniforms are to be exact representations of those worn at the Prussian court in the year 1797. The Emperor will appear as his great grandfather, King Frederick William 111., while the Empress will be dressed like the famous Queen Louise. The old Emperor William always declared that the present Empress was extremely like his mother, Queen Louise, and Her Majesty has been painted and photographed in imitation of the paintings of that Queen. Miss Winnifred Emery (Mrs Cyril Maude) tells an interviewer that, notwithstanding the eight performances a week at present, and all the busy details of her theatrical life, she does all her own housekeeping, managing the maids and all her social affairs just the same as if she had no great art to fill her thoughts and encroach upon her time. An eye specialist says it is within the experience of every ophthalmologist that the wearing of veils is productive of weak eyesight, headaches, and sometimes vertigo and nausea. Not only are these effects produced by the eye-strain consequent upon the increased efforts made by one or both eyes to see through or around an obstruction, but the irregular figuring on the veil itself is in some instances an annoyance to the wearer. A Berlin newspaper says that six queens use tobacco. The list embraces the Empress of Austria, whose practice of smoking thirty cigarettes a day has become a standing newspaper paragraph ; the Dowager Empress of Russia, Carmen Sylva, the Roumanian Queen, the Queen Regent of Spain, Queen Amelie of Portugal, and Queen Margherita of Italy. The theatrical craze has broken out again very severely in England. Everywhere one goes private theatricals are the order of the day. Good hopes may be entertained, too, that this revival of an old craze may not be as fleeting as some fashionable fancies have been of recent years, for the reason that those who have entered into it have apparently done so con amort, and not by any means for the mere sake of notoriety. What is more, it is a curious fact that amateur actors and act resses appear to be specially talented nowadays, so that private theatricals are robbed of many of their former terrors. Whether or not this sudden revelation of histrionic talent in high places will lead to further recruiting for the stage proper among younger sons and pretty daughters of distinguished families remains to be seen.