AS SEEN THROUGH WOMAN’S EYES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXV, Issue IX, 1 September 1900, Page 417

AS SEEN THROUGH WOMAN’S EYES.

Why Well Shaped Feet are Rare. There is scarcely a beautiful foot to found among- the women of to-day. The high heels, the exaggerated curve at the ball of the foot, the stiff heel stays, and the pointed toes, have distorted the foot in a painful and ugly manner. The ankles are mis-shapen. In some cases the bones are enlarged until they bulge out so that every bone is perceptible. The weight of the body thrown upon the toes has caused them to spread out. Crowded into pointed toes they stick up in clusters of knotty corns. The foot should be as shapely as the hand. Footwear should fit as a glove fits the hand. The perfect foot is slender with an arched instep and toes that lie smoothly and easily. The first step towards acquiring a pretty foot is to wear shoes that fit it comfortably. The next is to take exercise that will render the toes strong and supple. Begin by spreading out the toes to the utmost extent, then hold four toes still, and attempt to move the remaining one. Every toe should be distinct and able to move separately. Every nail should keep its shape, just as finger nails do. The big toe should be straighter and shorter than the next one, and the arch should be shapely and pliant. The feminine foot of to-day renders a graceful carriage an impossibility, and all because Dame Fashion has decreed that a short, high-heeled, pointed toed shoe is the correct thing in dressy footgear, forgetting that there never was a human foot built that way. To Clean Light Kid Gloves. Provide a saucer of skim milk, some good yellow soap, and a piece of flannel. Spread the gloves on a clean towel, smoothing out the creases. Dip the flannel in the milk and rub a little soap on it. With this rub the gloves working downwards from the wrists. You will need to rinse the flannel often. When all the dirt is removed lay the gloves, without rinsing, on a clean, dry towel, pulling them as nearly the right shape as possible. When dry they should be soft and glossy. White gloves that have got beyond cleaning can be painted over with saffron water two or three times and transformed into tan. Let them get thoroughly dry between each application, and don’t make them very wet To prepare the saffron water, boil a little saffron in water for a few minutes and let it stand several hours before using. The Every-day Frenchwoman. The enormous difference between Frenchwomen and the women of their own country must strike all English people who live long in France. French girl babies seem to be born with quite different qualities from English ones, and certainly their up bringing is conducted on entirely opposing lines. The free and healthy life of English girls in the school girl age is quite unknown in France, excepting among a few very advanced families, who bring up their children in the English mode. These are decidedly in the minority, and although it is on the one hand distinctly chic to be English, yet on the other the words “so English” convey to French minds exactly the same as the words “very French” convey to us, so that the generality of people look upon children, especially girls, who have been brought up in the English way as those who have already partaken of good and evil. Apart from her religion, the chief thought and aim of every French woman is the care and settlement in life of her daughters. They must so be brought up as to adorn the station in life in which they will marry; they must be saved for' watched over, sheltered, and guarded, very much as a trainer watches over a prospective Derby winner. And, let me tell you, it is no light matter to bring up a girl in the French way. On the contrary, indeed, it is a most arduous, selfsaerificing and wearisome undertaking. Until she is about seven years old the little French girl is utterly spoil-

ed. She is humored, petted, and given way to; she is fed most injudiciously, and, to our ideas, she is started badly. 1 have known a French grandmother say to a child unfortunately cursed with a very delicate digestion: “Eat not much breakfast, my little one, because I am going to take thee out this afternoon, and I shall take thee to a pastrycook’s.”

Then comes the period of education, which lasts till she is seventeen or eighteen, and in many cases is continued in part until mademoiselle is married. During the whole of that time a French girl of the upper and middle classes is never left alone for a single moment. Until she is married a young French lady never sets foot outside her house unaccompanied, and in many instances she occupies a bedroom which opens out of her mother’s, and she is not even allowed to have the door of communication closed by day or by night. She is never trusted, and therefore she is taught nothing of honour or of fending for herself; everything is done for her. She does not receive or reply to her offers of marriage, or even of partners for the dance.

The educational system of France for girls is one of repression, and I am not sure whether it is not better than ours, for it is certainly admirable in its results. Some girls, as in England, are educated at home under governesses and masters, while in Paris and other large cities the girls of a family have a governess not to teach them but to conduct them to various cours at which they receive instruction. A less smart, but more general way, is to send girls either as boarders or as day girls to the convents, which are to be found in every town in France.

In convents girls are taught more carefully and well, if in a somewhat limited manner. The good sisters are in all cases ladies by birth, speaking pure and perfect French, and they keep watch over their charges by day and by night with a devotion which is as admirable as it is wonderful. Even in their games girls are not left to themselves, but a sister keeps watch and ward to see that none are hurt and that the play does not become too boisterous. Should one pupil, generally an English girl, I am afraid, prove herself too rough, she is promptly punished, and several offences of this kind generally lead to the game being taboo, for French authority believes firmly in preventive measures as being the best. The result of this coddling is that while her English sister is cycling, playing tennis or cricket, or climbing trees with her brothers, the French girl is very soft, and cries 'for the smallest hurt or for the mildest rebuke.

The inherent love of gambling so deeply planted in the French heart is made use of even in the schools, for each week several grades of tickets are issued to the pupils. The first is the billet d’honneur, then comes the billet rose, then the billet blanc. To have no billet is a humiliation and a disgrace, and it is no uncommon thing in the middle-sized classes to have a dozen girls sobbing and howling at once on a Saturday morning when the distribution takes place. At the same time, the corresponding advantages of working for a billet are very great, for most parents give a douceur for a billet d’honneur, and a still greater honour and glory attaches to the girl who has worked herself on to the tableau d’honneur at the end of the term. Then by the time a girl has passed through the mill and reached the upper classes she is tired out of any naughty tricks she may have started with, she is a selfpossessed young lady who has learned to tread the right path because the other one has been made so intensely disagreeable to her. But if the French girl has not been taught by the good Sisters to be athletic, she has been trained to have charming manners, to have a modest, quiet bearing, and to look to her parents on all occasions. She seldom goes wrong, because she is guided in every relation of life by those who nre older and wiser than herself. Then she has been taught many things which would make our English girls stare with |aston.ishnient. She can sew, darn, and mend in the most beautiful way. She can act, too, even

from the very youngest age, and is encouraged to do so during the whole time that she is at school, though it is true that, as art takes no place in France (socially speaking, that is), the power is never of much use to her afterwards. So far as 1 have seen, ladies in France do not work, and are not encouraged to do so. All Frenchwomen are blessed with splendid business qualities, and the various charitable undertakings that are arranged by the women of the leisured classes are admirably conceived, managed, and carried out. Every parish has its committee of ladies for such works, ineluding those who are very rieh ami influential, and those who are poor and of small account. All is fish that comes to the net of the great lady deeply interested in good works who is Dame-I’residente of her parish. She takes advantage of all, rich and poor, high and low, faithful and heretic alike.

It would be hard to tell how Frenchwomen amuse themselves. Personally, 1 have never heard any amateur music in France that was worthy of mention; but all Frenchwomen dance exquisitely, some of them swim very well, and most of them hive some form or other of gambling. 1 have never yet heard of any real Frenchwoman, at least outside of the artistic elass, who took any form of exercise from choice, unless one can count a game of very mild croquet, or still more mild tennis, in which she never attempts to take a ball unless it actually comes begging to be taken, which does not often happen. A few women cycle, wearing a charming costume for the purpose—yes, knickers and all the rest —in which the rider does the greatest amount of posing and the smallest amount of cycling that is possible. She is always ready to go to a party, a race-meeting, a theatre, a concert, or a charity function of any description. Moreover, she is al-

ways ready to go to church, and will undertake almost any amount of chureh work, sueh as the eare of some particular chapel or altar. The average Frenchwoman seldom travels, or has any desire to do so, but she will, even long after she is married, put herself to infinite pains to acquire a foreign language of which she will never be likely to make any use. She is rigid in matters of etiquette, and punctilious in everything relating to family life in general and to mourning in particular. 1 have known a family go into deep mourning. regular weeds in fact, for a greatuncle whom they had never seen. This meant six months’ absolute cessation from all society, and tin l wearing of a long erape veil over the face during the whole of that time. Whether it is from her natural ability, her having passed through such a careful educational mill, or both, I know not, but a Frenchwoman is usually clever, devoted—always devoted to something—fascinating, housewifely, and extraordinarily patient in her domestic relations.' And although Monsieur is always pushed well to the front and Madame seems at first sight to take the second place, she has both her little fat hands as full of power as they will hold. She is altogether unlike her English sister, with her golf clubs, her bicycle, her shooting, and her fishing, her walking stick and her cigarette. And yet. she is but another edition of the most fresh and the most varying romance that the world has ever seen. JOHN STRANGE WINTER. O O O O o For Thin Figures. Women who have grown thin through worry—a frequent cause of loss of flesh—or other reasons, and who do not find the changed aspect of affairs an improvement to their appearance. not unnaturally seek a rein-

cdy. Their diet should be generous aid wholesome, they should take w no baths, and gentle daily exercise with dumb-bells, which will develop the muscles ami give roundness and solidity to the flesh. Voeal exercise Is also to be recommended. Properly taught and practiced, it. will expand the chest and give fulness to the throat. Facial massage with lanoline is a great be-.tlititier. Plenty of butler and honey, or golden syrup, cocoa made witu milk, eggs, rice, potatoes and milk puddings, should be included in the bill of fare. o o o o o How to Give a Cat Medicine. \ London gentleman Ims u very tine Angora eat, and so line a specimen of her kind that she is famous in a large circle of fashionable folk. She is not rugged in health, yet she cannot Tit l persuaded to take physic. It has been put in her milk, it has been nffrxed with her meat, it Ims even been rudely and violently rubbed in Iler .mouth, but never has she been deluded or forced into swallowing any of it. Last week an Irish girl appeared among the household servants. She heard about the failure to treat the eat. “Sure,” said she. “give me the medicine and some lard and I’ll warrant she'll be 'tiling all I give her." She mixed the powder and the grease and smeared it on the eat’s sides. Pussy at once licked both sides clean and swallowed all the physic. "Faith," said the servant girl, "everybody in Ireland does know how to give medicine to a cat." The New Women Viewed by Experts—As a Wife. The woman of to-day is as much superior in the capacity of a wife for the man of to-day as a person with all his faculties is superior to one who is mentally deficient. What does a man want in a wife? Does he want simply a doll stuffed with sawdust to sit in his parlour, ride in his carriage and wear the best clothes he is able

to buy for her? Does he want merely a housekeeper, an upper servant to superintend his meals, keep his wardrobe in order, ami act as nursery governess for the children? Or does he desire in the woman who is to be nearest to him always an intelligent companion, one who can enter into his intellectual life with sympathetic* appreciation, one to whom he can confide his business affairs, who will understand them as would a partner. ami wisely graduate the expenses to suit the income? Does he want only one that can see that the dinner is properly cooked and beautifully served, ami sit at the table like a handsome lay figure. Or would he prefer that, in addition to these accomplishments she should be able to converse understandingly on the current topics of the day? Shall she be able merely to minister to the material wants of the children, or shall she be their assistant ami companion in menttal and spiritual affairs up to ami all through manhood and womanhood? When the man was ploughing and sowing and reaping and a woman was spinning and weaving and churning and tailoring and doing scores of things which have long since been taken out of the home, they were approximately equal and satisfied with each other. During the last few generations ambitious men have made long strides forward. Much of the work which they formerly did with their own hands has been delegated to machinery. or to those who are not yet fitted for anything higher. While men were thus progressing it could not be expected that women would stand still. There is no more a new woman to-day than there is a new man. The husband of the present would be no better satisfied with the old-fashioned wife than they would bt» with the old-fashioned clothes or articles of household use or means of locomotion or implements of work. We live in a new age. of new things and new people. I do not wish to say that the wife of the past was not adapted to the husband of the past, But I do most emphatically believe that there was never so much intelli-

gent anil sympathetic comradeship between husbands and wives ill general as there is at the present time, anil that woman is (letter tit ted for a helpmeet and companion. Itaehofen, a German historian, says there was a long period in the dawn of civilisation called the matriarchate, or mother age, when woman reigned supreme. She was the head, the great factor, in all there was of home and family life. No one asked or eared who his father was. Man was a wanderer, ate raw meat and slept on the giound. From that we passed into the patriarchate, or father age, where man became the great factor and reigned supreme. In this stage we still are.

those who have watched the steps in the development of the race see clearly that the last century heralds a forward step in progress, in which man and woman will be equal factors, with an equal title deed to this planet and all that dwells thereon. This will be called the amphiarchate, when the two sexes will reign and rule together. To those who have eyes to see the signs of the new dynasty are apparent on all sides. The wheels of progress never move backward or stand still. The new woman has revealed her possibilities in art, science, literature and government, in all the trades and professions, and is a potent factor in social life. In spite of the opposition of bishops, college professors ami editors of some papers, she has settled the question of co-education and taken the prizes in Greek and mathematics. She is in the editorial chair and pulpit, developing her muscles in the gymnasium, and. like Vulcan at the forge, her skill in the manual labour department. The new woman will dictate her own conditions as mother of the race. She will change church customs and canon laws, amend constitutions and civil laws, to secure to herself a equal place in government, religion and social life. There will be an entire revision of all our statute laws, securing greater equity than we have ever had before for all classes. Will women in freedom marry? Cer-

tainly. Man has married in freedom. Woman will do the same. Men and women are attracted to each other by an irresistible natural law that no customs or antagonisms could prevent. Will the new woman bear children? Yes. Motherhood is one of the strongest desires of all women. The one cry of the women of the Old Testament, the wives of patri .rehs and prophets was, “Oh. Lord, give me children.” The isolated home of to-day is to give place to a mare cheerful one on the basis of co-operation. A law that has done so much to lighten the labours of home life, by removing the manufacture of butter and cheese, the spinning wheel anil loom, will go further. with the publie laundry, bakery and restaurant emancipating woman from what were supposed to be her imperative duties. Thus, the principle of co-operation, doing so much for the world of work, will add many new attractions to home life.