OVER THE TEACUPS

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 9, 2 March 1907, Page 48

OVER THE TEACUPS

BOUDOIR GOSSIP FOR LADY READERS . . .

Don’t Waste Your Time, Girls! KEEP YOUR EYESAND EARS OPEN, AND DON’T STOP GROWING, OR IT WON’T RE EASY TO BEGIN AGAIN. Are you really living, or are you letting the precious days slip by with nothing in them of interest? Remember that life is not long, and that this beautiful old world is full of wonderful things for those who take the trouble to look for them. Not a day passes but what we have a chance to learn something if we keep our eyes open. The dreamers must wake up, for, while they are building their aircastles, life is hurrying by. Youth is the time to learn —the mind is eager and plastic. Keep your eyes and ears open. When you are traveling in the train don’t go off into a day-dream over the new hat you are going to buy; watch the people—they are far more interesting than the grandest clothes that parade Regentstreet. Whatever you do, don’t stagnate. Try and learn something from everyone you know. You may work all day and be dead tired by nightfall, but try and do a little reading every day, even though you may only have ten minutes to devote to it. Read the newspapers, and such magaBines you can get hold of. But especially read books that are worth reading, tlnee you cultivate a fondness for good reading, the most delightful world will open to you. If you watch the papers you will see many good free lectures advertised where men and women of the greatest culture are to be found. Cultivate a fad of some sort that at least will keep you wide awake and interested. The more you know, the more interesting you will be to others. It is only necessary to be intelligent. Any intelligent face is better than one which has only prettiness to distinguish It. .Men are fond of declaring that girls can talk of nothing but. admirers and clothes. That is not so, of course, and it is every girl’s duty to be a living contradiction to that theory. Show your men friends that you can listen and talk intelligently on the principal topics of the day. It is not enough that you are young and pretty, you must be interesting as we 11. Make up your mind to add to your •store of knowledge every day. Remember that you can’t call back one of these previous flying minutes, and don’t waste one. As it is. we spend more than a quarter of our lifetime in sleep, so you see we must spend the waking moments so as to get the greatest gored out of them.

© ffi gs A Travelled Princess.

The Duke of Connaught is taking his Wife and daughter on an extensive tour next month. Princess Victoria Patricia is becoming a very much-travelled princess. East winter she went to South Africa; now India ami Canada will lie added, ami she is already fairly intimate with the more civilised European resorts. A faint rumour has been heard of the Duke’s intention to visit America, and an enterprising American who heard of it suggested, in all good faith, in my hearing. says the ‘’Lady of Fashion,” that J1.R.11. might do worse than marry his daughter to the President's eldest son. "I dare say we could stretch a point and •How her to freeze on to her title, seeing •he's a nice little thing," he added mag Uanimously.

Duke’s Simple Life.

The great Duke of Wellington seems to have been the oldest exponent of the simple life. His own room was plainness and simplicity itself. He always slept on a smalljeamp-bed, and Lord Ellesmere, in his reminiscences, tells us that he was temperate and careless in his diet, stating that he believed his good health was due to the three years he spent under canvas in India, when he ate little but rice, and drank scarcely any wine. He continued to eat rice to the day of his death. He ate it with meat and almost everything, and his intimate friends took eare always to place a dish of rice on the table when he dined with them. He was the first inventor of the mixture of ale and soda-water, but was quite innocent of any gastronomic fancies, scarcely knew one wine from another, and could not discern bad butter from good. His indifference in the matter of food was proverbial, a contrast, says Lady Violet Greville in the “Graphic,” to the present day, when diet forms one of the principle subjects of conversation. © © ©

Shop Girl’s Costly Piano.

At a meeting of women workers which took place recently, one speaker told of a firm that bought a piano thirty years ago, and have charged their assistants so much a month for it ever since. At a place with which I am acquainted—says a writer i nthe “Free Lance”— they mulct their assistants in the sum of sixpence a month for the use of an aged piano which has done duty for at. least twenty years, and was second-hand when bought. It must have been little short of a gold mine to its owners, for there are 350 employees, and these pay sixpence a month each at whatever stage of musical inefficiency they happen to be. During twenty’ years this mascot of an instrument lias realised no loss a sum than £2lOO.

£1,000,000 a=Year by Gambling.

WOMEN LOSE THOUSANDS A NIGHT AND JEWELS. Sensational revelations have been made concerning the operations of the great Gambling Club Trust, the fortytwo members of which (including their chief. M. Marquet) have just been expelled from this country. The trust ran a number of gambling houses under the guise of clubs, and its profits from each house amounted to £ 144,000 per annum. It is estimated that during the past year its net gains have considerably exceeded £1.000.000. News of the great extension of gambling which has recently taken place reached the Home Office from the dressmaking establishments, where numbers of bills remained unpaid by well known society women and actresses owing to their heavy losses at the trust clubs. LARGE SUMS GAMBLED AWAY.

It came to the knowledge of the authorities that many women had been in the habit of attending these gaming houses, where some of them had lost £3OOO to £4OOO at a sitting. A celebrated actress lost £3200 in one evening. Some of the women, after losing all their money, were seen to take off all their jewellery and dispose of it at absurd prices to shady brokers who haunt-

ed the places for the purpose of picking up such bargains. With the proceeds the unhappy women would try their luck once more—in the great majority of cases only to lose all. These revelations caused the Government to make inquiries, and it was discovered that M. Marquet’s great extension of gaming houses had by a curious circumstance been rendered possible by the Associations Law of 1901, which was passed to put an end to the religious associations. Under this measure he found that he could open so-called clubs without having to get police permission. All he had to do was to make a declaration of an association, give it a high-sounding title, take a house, and start gambling. One of his dubs, called the Club de France, in the Avenue MacMahon, had an immense membership of men and women, the subscription being quite a nominal amount, and it vias here that most of the heavy losses by women occurred. EXTRAORDINARY’ CAREER. M. Marquet, who runs gambling rooms in Ostend. Namur, Dinan, Spa. and Corfu, has had an extraordinary career. He was a waiter in an Ostend cafe, and in 1899 he married the owner’s widow. With her money he started roulette at Ostend and Spa, and by suppressing the zero for a few hours each day he made his tables so popular that in a very short time he made an immense fortune. He organised his men in a wonderfully clever way, teaching them in a school for croupiers which he ran, and paying them so highly that they were all devoted to him. In his Paris houses he introduced a new form of Baccarat, which proved exceedingly popular, but very costly to his clients. He recently offered a prize of £BOOO for the owner of the first aeroplane which should fly from Paris to Ostend. © © ©

Surprise Gifts.

Some people do not like surpjrise gifts, but they are the exception that proves the rult. A surpise gife to be a right surprise must be one that gives a keen pleasure both to the giver and the receiver. It is pyeasant for us to know that some one has thought enough of us to watch carefully for any stray words that will give an inkling of our particular - longing for some particular thing. And in giving such a thoughtful gift it is equally pleasant to think that we have had the intuition to strike on the one thing needful or desirable. Many women—and a few men—have this genius of gift-giving, and such never buy in a hurry. Therein lies their secret. They are content to wait and watch till circumstances and observations tell them what would best be appreciated. Then and not till then do they consider it best to act and buy. ffi ffi ffi

To Let.

To let. a little lonely heart. In good position. To search Its chambers through anil through, Ami see it they are good and true. You have permission. Though small, its capabilities Are very good; ’Tis sunny, and 'tis very warm. And wholly yours through sun and stortn And changing mood. To let, a little lonely heart. Take pity, dear, And rent this little heart of mine. All that you find therein is thiue. Each smile, each tear. <—Dorothy M. Mollett,

Hotel for Telephone Girls.

An extremely comfortable and moder* ately-prieed hotel for the use of telephone girls was recently opened in Paris. It is a fine building, six storeys high, and situated on the Rue de Lille. This new hotel for working girls is not a commercial venture, but has been built by a body of philanthropists, which includes some of the best-known names in France. There are one hundred and twenty pretty bedrooms in the building, all well lighted and ventilated, and they are let at moderate rentals varying from eighteen to thirty francs a month. The hotel contains spacious dining saloons, reading-rooms and halls, all lighted by electricity and heated by steam. , The large bright restaurant is most inviting and comfortable, and a really good meal can be obtained for less than a franc. Needless to say, the whole of the hundred and twenty bed rooms found occupants immediately the hotel was declared open. © ffi ©

Tealess Village.

Pott Shrigley, the little village on the fringe of the Cheshire highlands, where was the setate of the late Mrs Lowther, is known among country trampers -—says the “Manchester Guardian” —as the “tealcss village.” It was one of the few places in the country round Manchester where it was impossible for the hungry and thirsty pedestrian to get tea. The late owner of the estate —one was always told —forbade her tenants to “give tea.” She had, it was presumed, a strong prejudice against the tripper, including in that general designation both the cyclist and the tramp, and so the Manchester tripper regarded Pott Shrigley from afar as a place to be avoided. ffi © © It was asserted the other day by a literary men that all clever women—at least, women who had distinguished themselves above the common herd of their sisters —were plain-featured, unattractive, if not positively ugly. ’Tis true, and pity’ tis ’tis true, that almost all the great women of letters —Mme. de Stael, Mme. Sand, George Eliot, Charlotte BrOnte, Mrs. Browning and Miss Austen—were plain women. The question then arises: Is this the fault of nature whose niggard hand will not deal out simultaneously beauty of feature and power of brain, or is it the fault of women who are content to accept the appendage of beauty as a kingdom and a power in itself and seek no more so long as there are slaves ready and willing to be attached to their ear? Or is it that the plain woman handicapped in the race of life with her beautiful sisters, has carved out a new career and a new triumph for herself? The new woman might refute the assertion triumphantly by growing beautiful as well as clever.