MEN AND WOMEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XXI, 13 November 1897, Page 650

MEN AND WOMEN.

There are two deplorable extremes, into one of which a young girl often falls on receiving ‘her first offer.’ The worse and more frequent of these is that of fancying herself in love, when in reality she doesn’t care a fig for her lover. The other consists in a coquettish pride, which leads her against the dictates of her judgment and the inclinations of her heart, to reject a suitor, however worthy. Many a woman has blighted her own life and that of the man she loved by indulging in a passion for coquetry. Having charms of which she is fully conscious, she proudly measures her power, and says to herself : ’I am equal to great conquests, and shall I thus earlv submit to be conquered ? No ! when I have had a surfeit of these delights, then—’ But the time referred to in the long futurity of the little word ‘then’ seldom comes to the coquette. It will always be ‘then.’ For domestic servant-girls and other heavy sleepers, whose slumbers the ordinary alarm-clock does not disturb, an ingenious appliance has been devised. It consists of a metal frame to be hung above the sleeper’s head. From it are suspended a number of corks. During the night it is lowered gradually by a clockwork mechanism, until at the proper hour and minute the dangling corks begin to bob against the nose and face of the sleeper. Of course she wakes up. Liza Wellington, a negro woman about thirty-six years of age. entered a doctor’s office at Maysville. Georgia, and called for ‘medicine to make her quit eating dirt.’ The physician asked a few questions, and found that the woman was in the habit of eating a washbasinful of dirt daily. The woman declared that the dirt gave her more satisfaction than a firstclass meal at the hotel. The doctor says that the woman's health is not seriously impaired. She has an asliy appearance, but is active and strong enough. The German list of patents contains the following :—’No. 92.406. an invention by Fraulein Elfriede Latekiewitz. of Berlin, for artificially filling out the cheeks. The apparatus is worn inside the. mouth, attached to the jaws.’ After false teeth, false hair, and false calves for cyclists we have now arrived at false cheeks. — Paris ‘Figaro.’ Never marry a man who has only his love for you to recommend him. It is very fascinating, but it does not make the man. If he is not otherwise what he should be. you will never be happy. The most perfect man who did not love you should never be your husband. But. though marriage without love is terrible, love only will not do. If the man is dishonourable to other men. or mean, or given to anv vice, the time will come when you will either loathe him or sink to his level. The United Brethren General Conference. at its recent session, had a discussion of the word ‘obey’ in the marriage ceremony of their discipline. A large number of women had interested themselves in the matter, and worked for its elimination, but the conference refused, and the word remains. ~ Old styles of jewellery are coming into fashion again. Women are haunting the old curio shops trying to find the beautiful old cameos like those worn by their mothers and grandmothers. The old-fashioned setting is rarely changed, the quaintly carved and twisted gold being considered extremely beautiful. The old brooches and rings are especially sought for. and bring remarkable prices when found. Sandow has a rival, if reports are to be believed. This is the Archduchess Maria Therese of Austria, who is one of the strongest women in the world, and certainly the strongest in a royal family. She is said to be capable of lifting a man in the air with one hand. The new ladies’ club in Edinburgh is likely (according to a London journal) to excite a good deal of attention. It is to be a purely social club, and, of course, it is to be yclept ‘The Queen’s Club.’ Gentlemen may be invited by members. A lady journalist expresses the opinion that women are well fitted to write for newspapers. She says : They have done and are doing good

work thereon, and it is probable a larger future is yet reserved for them upon the press. The qualities that make them succeed as novel writers would make them succeed as journalists. Their alert interest in the many-sidedness of life, their quick perceptive qualities, their sense of character, their light if somewhat superficial handling of a theme, tend, with sufficient training, to adapt them for the New Journalism. On almost all the various departments of the papers women are at work. There are women interviewers, paragraphists. essayists. critics, descriptive writers, foreign correspondents. Nearly everyone has travelled sixty miles an hour on the railway except the Queen, who has never experienced the sensation of whizzing through space so quickly. The speed of the royal train never exceeds forty miles an hour. The early fading of married women is always" a subject for comment among "their dearest friends. Each particular friend has some very good cause to assign for it, but- it is a question whether, in many cases, it is not greatly the woman's own fault. Think, mothers, do you not do much unnecessary work ? Everybody knows that you all. or at least- nine-tenths of you. sew much more than there is anv necessity for. Do you not stand’ to do many things which you could do as well sitting, if you were only accustomed to it '? 'Oh. but it looks so lazy A fig for the way it looks *. Why should a woman stand up to pare potatoes ? M omen stand half the morning preparing vegetables. Ask them the reason, and what is their answer ? ‘Oh. 1 don't know. I always stand. I’m used to it. I can work better so. Thev have no business to be used to it. One of the strangest of marriage customs known has prevailed for centuries in the cheese-making districts of Switzerland. There, when a happv pair unite in the bonds of wedlock, it is usual for their friends to buy them a ‘register cheese, which is presented to them on the evening of their wedding day, and henceforth becomes the family register. These cheeses are. of course, heirlooms, and on them is carved all the important events of a family, such as births, deaths, marriages, and other matters which it is considered advisable to record. Colonel Erastus Wheeler, a prominent and wealthy retired merchant of Atlanta, has laid the possible grounds for a divorce between himself and his wife by shaving off his hirsute adornments." The colonel, who is widely and favourably known throughout the State, was formerly ornamented with a heavy growth of silken whiskers, which were the pride of his wife, who is an ‘advanced' woman, and well known in intellectual circles. He came home clean-shaven, and Mrs Wheeler, forgetting her culture, administered a terrible tongue lashing. Thev are now living apart. Social and intellectual Atlanta are convulsed over the affair. Discussing the question ‘W hy don c men marry'?' a bachelor says: It the number of bachelors is augmenting with such a frightful rapidity it is 'because it costs more to live than it did in olden times, and a man dare not assume a responsibility the expenses of which appear to him exorbitant. A prudent man, who manages without very much trouble to maintain a modest establishment, considers the fact of taking unto himself a wife as an act of prodigality for which there is no excuse, and looks upon the birth of one or more children as ruinous. Marriage is an association the expenses and first disbursements of which have grown beyond all measure during the last twentyfive vears. The moralists of the masculine gender attribute this in general to the life which the woman of today leads, and which has made married life too much of a luxury for the average man. From the top to the lowest rung of the social ladder you will not meet, according to these pessimists, a young girl who would consent, on starting housekeeping, to lead the life and to accommodate herself to the simple tastes of her grandmother. The necessity of entertaining. the hunt after worldly pastimes and the passion for dress cause today. no matter what the social conditions are, ravages infinitely more serious than those of the past.’