Men and Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue V, 24 July 1897, Page 150

Men and Women.

THE determined and humane protest recently made by Chon, a distinguished scholar and man of in-

fluence in China, against the brutal and senseless foot-binding custom of the Chinese on their female children, it is most earnestly hoped may be the means of ultimately, if not immediately abolishing the barbarous practice. Tortured most cruelly to begin with, to grow up perfect cripples, who, to get about, must go on their hands and knees ; it is amazing advancing civilization and education should not have intervened before.

Apropos of the recent terrible disaster in Paris, when so many of the elite of the French capital perished in the flames, a writer in a Home contemporary says :—‘The record picture of the Duchess of Alencon as she was last seen by mortal eyes will be preservedin the annals of the House of Orleans as long as it exists. She refused to attempt to fight her way onward with the rest of the unhappy crowd, but when she saw that escape was impos sible she remained silent and statuesque in her place, and, as one who saw her just before the end said, she raised her eyes to Heaven and seemed as though she was looking at a vision, the last words she was heard to utter being, “Do not trouble about me, I shall leave last.” The Duchess was the daughter of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, and her elder sisters married respectively, the Emperor of Austria, the King of Naples, and Prince Louis of the two Sicilies, Count of Trani. Her marriage took place at Possenhofen in the year 1868, when the Duchess, who was fifty years of age at the time of her death, was in her twenty-first year. Her Royal Highness had two children. The oldest, Princess Louise, who married a Prince of her mother’s family, was born at Bushey Park, where the family of the Duke of Nemours made their home until the fall of the Napoleonic dynasty allowed them to return to France in 1872. The second, Prince Emmanuel, was married in February of last year to Princess Henrietta of Belgium, daughter of the Count of Flanders, heir to the throne, the Duke and Duchess of Alencon being present at the ceremony in Brussels. The Duchess had not had good health tor some time past, and had retired almost altogether from social life, of which she was never very fond. Of late years she has devoted herself to works of charity and philanthropy, being wise and generous in an equal degree in her distribution of alms. She won the deep respect of all who knew her for the patience and kindness she showed to those in trouble, whether of her own rank or inferior station, and regret at her loss in Paris is universal among the poorer classes, and those who give their lives to them, for they feel they have lost a friend whose place will not soon be supplied. Her husband, the Duke, is utterly prostrated by his loss, which he feels the more as he was in the fated building at the time of the fire, but was unable to rescue his wife. The Duke is a handsome man of stately presence, as are so many of the Orleans princes, but he has always been of a melancholy cast of countenance. The Duchess of Galliera once playfully called him Hamlet, and the name has remained by him ever since.

Well-dressed shop girls form one of the attractions at a new shop in London. A well-known Parisian costumier has opened a large permanent establishment there, and his employes wander about the white-painted rooms, wearing dress after dress that shows off the latest fashion.

A novelty in wedding cards is being introduced. Two tiny photographs of the bride and bridegroom are mounted one on each side of two folding flaps. A dainty little souvenir of this sort is a much prettier remembrance of a wedding day than the usual favour or sedate wedding group photographer. Christmas cards with a tiny photograph mounted thereon were popular last year, but this new idea is evidently being reserved for the weddings still to come,

A London paper prints the disturbing statement that a noted teetotaller has just died in England from delirium tremens. It is said by a prominent English physician that scores of patented tonics and specifics are essentially alcoholic liquor, and the poorest grades of spirits at that.