HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXI, Issue IX, 27 August 1898, Page 286

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

ETIQUETE OF GLOVES. On the subject, of wearing gloves it might be supposed there was very little room for doubt or indecision, and yet many are the questions on this head that, reach us. Should gloves be taken off at afternoon at homes in the tea room? Formerly it was usual to do so, and a gentleman would hold a lady’s cup of tea the while she removed her gloves; now she keeps them on as a matter of course —it is the fashion. The fact of wearing gold bangles and bracelets over long-but-toned gloves makes it difficult to rearrange them in a few given moments, and thus few attempt the feat. The majority of ladies take off their gloves in sitting down to dinner, some few wearing very long elbow gloves, and, intending to go to a dance or reception afterward, do not take them off, but dine in their gloves; but these are the exceptions. After dessert, ladies put on their gloves again before leaving the dining room, if time permits; otherwise they do so on arrival in the drawing room. At a ball supper it is most unusual to take off the gloves; there is no necessity for so doing, and the difficulty of rebuttoning and rearranging them under the bracelets demands more time than is at command during a short stay in the supper room.

They are evidently determined that they will have no ‘revolted daughters’ in Germany if they can help it. The Minister of Education was lately petitioned by the people of Breslau for permission to found a high school for girls in that town. His reply was brief and disagreeable. It practically came to this: ‘High school, indeed! Stuff and nonsense! A Woman’s proper place is her own. home. She. gets all the. education she needs there.’ This sentiment is admirable, of course, so far as it goes. Unhappily, there are not homes enough for women to manage, a.nd how then does this good Minister of Education suppose that the superfluous woman is to support herself if she does not qualify herself to seek employment outside the home?

YOUNG WIFE’S SOCIAL DUTIES. To simply live alone, with no provision for the gratification of the social instincts, is apt to prove too severe a strain upon the reserve forces of even the happiest marriage. Thera is some excuse to be made for the man who seeks society outside of the home- wherein no thought is given to social pleasure, while the wife is apt to grow petty and personal, and so less attractive as she shuts herself away from intercourse with others. This dropping out is very easy, but even when prosperity comes and large social functions are possible it is too late to gain that most valuable possession. friendship, which is entirely independent of financial success. To have and to hold a place in the social life of the world is not only the right, but the duty of the young wife, who desires to have a home in its truest and best sense.