MEN AND WOMEN.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XX, Issue XX, 14 May 1898, Page 608

MEN AND WOMEN.

Here is a point of etiquette. When a mistress has occasion to write a letter to her housemaid, how should she address the letter? Should it begin, ‘Dear Janet,’ ‘Dear Miss Jones,’ or should it be in the formal third person, ‘Mrs requests Janet to?’ A touching romance in the life of the kite Right Hon. Charles Pelham Villiers has (says the ‘Daily Telegraph’) been disclosed by his death, hi early life he fell deeply in love with a Miss Mellish, and his affection was returned as far as could be done by a lady who for some reason had taken a vow to lead a single life. Mr \ illiers remained true to his first love, and never married, and his constancy so touched Miss Mellish that in her will she left all her fortune —a considerable one—to him absolutely. He however, never touched the money, leaving it to accumulate with interest, while he lived very simply on his own modest revenue, supplemented by his Cabinet pension. By the time of Mr ' illiers' death the capital originally left by Miss Mellish hail grown to a sum considerably over a quarter of a million sterling. Of this total he. by will, left £150,000 to the Rev. Montague Villiers, vicar of St. Paul’s, Knightsbridge, and a somewhat similar sum to Mr Ernest Villiers.

There are over 200 women aefross the Atlantic who have* been regularly ordained as ministers, besides nearly three times as many evangelists and lay preachers, the Church of the Disciples having no fewer than 46 of its regular ministers women, the Universalist Church 40, the Free Will Baptists 38, the Unitarians 24, the Congregationalists 23, the United Brethren of Christ 21, and the Protestant Methodist Church 8, while Mrs Salomons has recently officiated as Rabbi at the Sinai Temple, Chicago, so well known in connection with the liberal Jewish movement. If England were America we should be looking forward in the near future to hearing a woman from the pulpit of St. Paul’s.

Nearly all lhe memuer.-, -»f The Royal Family have their photograph albums, amongst the most elaborate of these being those possessed by the Empress Frederick of Germany, Princess Beatrice and Princess Louise (Marchioness of Lome). But perhaps the most interesting of all the Royal albums is the one belonging to the Queen. It is of the old-fashioned scrap-book pattern, and contains many beautiful little sketches by the Queen herself and the Prince Consort. There are also many little contributions and mementoes from many eminent people of thirty and fortysears ago. Not the least interesting part of the contents is a piece of the lace which decorated the Queen’s wedding cake.

One of the duties of the Lord Chamberlain on the occasion of a State concert is as follows:—The member of the Royal Family representing Her Majesty occupies the centre chair on a raised dais at the end of the room, facing the orchestra. Immediately she is seated the Lord Chamberlain, bowing very solemnly, approaches, kneels down, and gently takes the right foot of the Royal lady and even more gently places it on a crimson and gold foot-stool. Then the Lord Chamberlain retires. The municipal year-book of Berlin for 1896, just published, contains an interesting section on the size of Berlin families. in that year a lady, forty-one years old, presented her husband with his twentieth living child. There were five families with nineteen children, sixteen with eighteen, seventeen with seventeen, thirty-two with sixteen, sixty-three with fifteen, eighty-three with fourteen, and one hundred and twenty-six with thirteen. Two hundred pairs of Berlin patients counted a dozen children each, the mother in one ease being only twentysix years old. A mother of eighteen offsprings was thirty-five years old, while women, of twenty-three, and twenty-four had borne eight and five children respectively. On the whole, however, early marriages are much rarer here than in London. There were only sixty-two husbands under twenty years of age during 1896, and only sixty-three wives under seventeen. Ou the other hand, one hundred and fifty bachelors over fifty-six years old changed their estate, and one- lady became a mother for the first time in her fifty-fifth year.