AS SEEN THROUGH WOMAN’S EYES.

New Zealand Graphic, 1 July 1899, Page 27

AS SEEN THROUGH WOMAN’S EYES.

SOCIETY WIDOWS.

A well-known society man has been heard to say that widows rule London, and there is certainly much truth in his pronouncement. A widow’s position is a commanding one, for she holds the privileges conferred by marriage while retaining the fair freedom of unattached womanhood. And if kindly fairies had attended her christening, and she is rich, clever, witty, pretty and popular, or even with a due admixture of these desirable qualities, her successful social career is a foregone conclusion. The reign of the widow is an ancient sovereignty, and at the present time there are many notable examples in our midst. • • • To take first the wearers of strawberry leaves; the Dowager Duchess of Abercorn, the Duchess of St. Albans, the Duchess of Cleveland, Maria Duchess of Grafton, Sydney Duchess of Manchester, Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, the Dowager Duchess of Newcastle, Eleanor Duchess of Northumberland, the Duchess of Roxburgh, and the Dowager Duchess of Somerset. The Dowager Duchess of Abercorn is a venerated and venerable lady, the mother of many children, a grandmother and great-grandmother, and her offspring are singularly distinguished in their day and generation. Among her children are the present Duke of Abercorn, the Duchess of Buccleuch. Lady Lansdowne, Lady Blandford, and Lady Winterton, and one of her grandaughters is the reigning Lady Waterford. This aged Duchess is known to her affectionate family as “Grannie” She resides at Coates Castle. Sussex. • • • The Duehess of Cleveland is one of the wonders of the age. She was a daughter of the fourth Lord Stanhope, and was one of the Queen’s bridesmaids. By her first marriage with Lord Dalmeny she became the mother of Lord Rosebery, and in 1854 took as her second husband the fourth and last Duke of Cleveland. She was a very beautiful and brilliant woman, but during her ducal husband’s lifetime spent a quiet existence at Battle Abbey and at the gloomy town mansion, Cleveland Hopse, St. James’s. However, since her days of mourning ended, this marvellous old lady seems to have taken another lease of life, and to have developed a taste for distant travel, making expeditions to Egypt, the Cape, and the West Indies. She has also written a book entitled “The Roll of Battle Abbey.” Until quite recently the Duchess has given smart entertainments at her house in Grosvenor Place, and still arranges a succession of “week-end” parties at Battle Abbey. • • • Consuelo, Duchess of Manchester, is well known as one of the handsomest and wittiest women of the day. She is mother of the present Duke, and of a very lovely daughter, Lady Alice Montagu, and affords a bright example of the many brilliant Americans who have married into the British aristocracy. The Duchess of Manchester . gives charming small dinners, often honoured by Royalty, and at which may be met the shining lights, of literature, politics and society. The Duchess of Roxburgh was one of the many daughters of the lately deceased Fanny . Duchess of Marlborough, and is mother of the present Duke of Roxburgh. She has had much of Court favour, and was at one time Mistress of the Robes. The Dowager-Duchess of Newcastle is a remarkable personality; she belonged to the wealthy Hope family, and is even now"-a beautiful woman. She is a zealous Roman Catholic, devoted to music and to good works, and has almost deserted her house in Hill-st., Berkeley Square, for an abode in the East End. where, with several other ladies, she labours among the sick and suffering. The DowagerDuchess of Newcastle has been twice a widow, her second husband, Mr Hohler, having died in 1892.

Eleanor, Duchess of Northumberland, is one of the many sisters of the Duke of Westminster, and her husband, Duke Algernon, accomplished the great task of rebuilding Alnwick Castle. A veil of silence must be drawn over the recent grief of the widowed Duchess of Beaufort. • • • Isabella, Lady Wilton, has for many a long year been one of our recognised histesses, giving smart dinners and an occasional concert at her house in Upper Grosvenor-st. She appears to care little for foreign travel, but to have a decided preference for Folkestone as a health resort. Another well-known) and popular widow is a near neighbour of Lady Wilton’s in Upper Grosvenor-st. This lady is the aged Mrs Townley, one of the leaders of the smart- Roman Catholic set in London, and whose cheery ball, given on every Christmas Day. has always been a welcome event of the winter season. Her three daughters, Mrs Delacour, Mrs Murray, of Polmaise, and Lady Clifford, are all very great favourites in society. • • • Mme. de Falbe apd Lady Henry Gordon Lenonx are two important personages who have well-nigh t broken the record, for they have both become widows for the third time. Mme. de Falbe’s third husband was Danish Minister at our Court for some years, and by her second husband. Mr Gerald Leigh, she became possessed of Luton Hoo, a magnificent place in Bedfordshire, where the Prince and Princess of Wales have been her guests on several occasions. She was also owner of the once famous yacht Chazalie. • • • Lady Dorothy Nevill is one of the institutions of London. She gives neither dinners nor parties, but her luncheons are second to none. She is perhaps the greatest woman wit of her time, and from Sandringham downwards is verywhere a welcome guest. Her piquante personality is an added charm, and the quaint- mob-cab and amber necklaces are a familiar sight in all the best London drawingrooms. • • o Two very pretty widows are engag. ed to be married, and will soon be “relicts” no longer; these are, Olive Lady Cairns and Lady Abercromby, of Forglen. ELLA. • • • THE BEST WAY’ TO PACK A TRUNK. It is not the wearing of clothing that tells so sadly as the manner in which it is kept. Clothing all moist and dusty tossed into a dark closet, trunk, or drawer can never be nice again, and its appearance proclaims the character of the wearer more than the purse. A garment aired, dusted, and put properly away will outlast many changes of fashion, and if the owner has taste and individuality, it takes on an air or suggests a sentiment impossible to associate with new apparel—the tone and personality of the wearer. Fresh rose leaves or sprigs of sweet herbs sprinkled in a trunk or drawer or on closet shelves, lend almost a witchery to clothing—a dainty fragrance, evanescent as fancy and so delicate that the most sensitive and fastidious must enjoy it. For going away the closer a trunk is packed the better things will carry. It will be well to fcld a dress skirt in a soft old sheet or unstarched muslin, or cambrie kept for the purpcse, so as to decrease to a minimum the possibility of cutting or creasing. Now that frills and ruffles have come back, these should be turned up, so that when the dress is unfolded they may “fluff” down. Fold as broad and smooth as possible, as nearly fitting the receptacle as may be. Have little soft rolls of flannels or stockings to fit into crevices. Shoes should never be put in loose, but each in a case or cover so ar-

ranged as to prevent rubbing. A wise lady’s maid will not use shoe polish, but a little fresh, sweet milk on a flannel cloth, for kid boots or patent leather, wiping dry with another flannel cloth and rubbing gently. Plenty of brushes and whisk brooms and squares of woollen cloth are well to tuck in to clean with. Tissue paper crumple in bonnet boxes, among ribbons, neckwear, or millinery will save many a heartache. Then be sure to have one or two tiny irons in your trunk, and a frame may be had to set over a lamp or the gas. Then the tissue paper comes handy to lay over veils, or lace, or ribbon, or a crease in a dress. Never let the iron touch the fabric, but iron over the tissue paper. • • • THOSE TROUBLESOME SPOTS. HOW TO CONQUER THE MYSTERIOUS THINGS. The mysterious ways of spots are known to most housekeepers. They come ami go in a perfectly unreasonable fashion, and, like so many ailments, apparently for no particular reason. The dark patches that too often appear, naturally in the most conspicuous parts of a carpet, are particularly annoying, and should be got rid of at once, as, if not, they have a knack of spreading. They are g* nerally grease marks, and should be well washed with this mixture: A small quantity of soap dissolved in a gallon of warm soft water, to which must be added half an ounce of borax. After being well rubbed with this the greasy or dirty mark will soon disappear, but care must be taken in applying the water to use a clean cloth, or the result will be a general appearance of dinginess wherever the dirt has been rubbed in. Most stains on a carpet can be removed by treatment, or some acid. A blood stain is the only one that it is practically impossible to get rid of satisfactorily, a fact to which even professional carpet cleaners will testify. 1 A REALLY USEFUL HINT. Glass-stoppered bottles put away in dressing-cases or medicine ehests are very liable, especially if anything is put away in them, to stick, so that it is almost impossible to remove the stopper without breaking. An almost infallible way of loosening them is to apply a few drops of oil with a feather round the stopper, close to the mouth of the bottle or decanter, which must then be placed a short distance from the fire. The heat will cause the glass to expand and the oil to insinuate itself between the stopper and the neck. When the bottle is quite warm, gently strike the stopper from side to side with any light wooden instrument, and try if it is loose. If it still will not move, add another drop of oil and again place it near the fire. This, if persevered in, will loosen the stopper, howeveh tightly it is fastened in. • • • A BIT OF THE TRUTH. The most pertinent and startling question ever asked is this:—‘What is truth?’ A Roman Governor propounded it once, under circumstances which greatly worried and perplexed his official mind. And he was not the first man or the last—not by myriads. So far as I know there has been no satisfactory answer. Some people (radicals and come-outers of various sorts) fancy that in this, t'he tail end of a rather braggart and conceited century, they have flushed a fair-sized covey of truths by firing speculative shot guns into every way ;ide bush and bog. But have they done it? No, gentlereader, no. They have put up crows and sparrows, the same crows that picked the bones of the cave dwellers, and the same sparrows that sold two for a farthing in the time of Pilate. There were plenty of fools of old, and there are plenty now. The ancient doctors, indeed, prescribed some horrible stuffs as medicine—they used electuaries of viper’s flesh and recom-

mended pomegranate seeds for toothache because those seeds resemble human teeth. Very shallow and silly, to lie sure, this sounds to us. But if you wanted to find things that come very near matching them in modern practice, I could show you where to look. On my table I have a list of about 300 new ‘remedies’ introduced to a suffering world within the past twelvemonth. ‘Must be some good ones among them,’ do you say? Possibly Time will tell. Meanwhile'let us stick to whatever we are sure of. ‘We learn how to cure diseases,’ said Celsus, ‘by experience, not by reasoning.’ ‘Some of the greatest truths in medicine,’ said a learned Scotch doctor, ‘came by the humblest means; not by syntheses or venesection, but by the observations of peasants and the experiments of motherly women.’ Concerning a medicine discovered by one suc’h woman, thousands of stories have been told and letters written. Here is an exnmple: — ‘For many years I have suffered from indigestion and weakness. I seemed to have no energy for anything. I had a poor appetite, and what little food I ate caused me violent pains at the chest and between the shoulders. Frequently I had attacks of giddiness, and when I stooped I suffered from an unnatural rush of blood to t'he head. The pain which I was called upon to bear was often very severe; it affected all parts of my body, and at night I got little proper refreshing sleep on account of it. ‘As time went on and the complaint grew fixed upon me, I came to be exceedingly weak, and now and again was obliged to take to my bed. I lost flesh and became quite thin, living, as I did, only on milk, beef tea, and other kinds of liquid food. It will be understood, of course, that I had medical care, besides attending the South London Dispensary. Y’et I received no benefit from what, was done for me. ‘lt happened that in January, 1889, a friend, Mr Pullen, told me he had suffered in a similar manner and been cured by a remedy called Mother Seigel’s Syrup. Acting on his suggestion I got a bottle, and after having taken it I found great relief. Presently my appetite returned and food no longer distressed me. Convinced that Mother Seigel’s Syrup was adapted to my ailment I continued the use of it until it was no longer needed. My health and strength were re-established, and I have since been well. This medicine 'had done what no others had been able to do. My husband, who suffered •from biliousness, itsed it with the same result. You have my free consent to publish this brief statement if you desire to do so.’ —(Signed) Mrs Julia Massey, 133, Lorrimore Road. Kefinington, London, S.E., January 20th, 1898. There is no royal road to the discovery of the truth or knowledge. Anybody may find it anywhere. It is not always 'he who seeks that finds. Valuable discoveries are usually made by what, for lack of a better word, we cal) accident. The medicine that cures is the medicine we want, no matter whether it is old as the earth or was picked up yesterday’ in the fields by a child. That Mother Seigel’s Syrup cures is proved by a cloud of witnesses. It is a bit of the truth. Therefore it will not die out, and nothing can take its place.