EMPLOYMENT FOR WOMEN.
IN WELLINGTON. Tho women's employment branch of tho Labour Department was kept bus.ip in Wellington last month. The, fol : lowing is , a' summary of the month's work:—Employers asked for the following employeoa: Day-workers, C 3; i domestic wd/kers, 42; housemaids, 18 ; lady-helps, 3; cooks, 9; nursemaid, 1; waitresses, .4; pantrymaids, 4; married couples, 4; matron, 1; housekeepers, 2; seamstress (privato), 1; seamstress (factory), 1; total, 143. The following employees sought employment: Day-workers, 29; domestic workers, 6; lady-helps, 3; housemaids, 9; croks, 8; housekeepers, 2; waitresses, 6; pantrymaid, 1; nursemaid, 1; seamstresses, 2; hop-pickers, 29; total, 91. Of tlieso the following engagements eventuated: Day-workers/ 28; domestic workers,' 6; lady-help, 1; housemaids, 8; cooks; 2; housekeepers, 2; waitresses, 6; pantrymaid, 1; seam- . stresses, 2; nurse, 1; hop-pickers, 29; total, 86. Of these (excluding hoppickers) lo were married women and 42 single or widows with 33 dependents; 22 had been, previously assisted; 47 came from the North Island, 1 from the South, 1 from tho Commonwealth, and 8 from' Great Britain. The hop-pickers wero composed of married women, single, and widows, with and without children under school age. The strike- interfered with the picking of tho small fruit, those pickers usually going into tho hopfields, consequently there was.delay in; getting sufficient hands 'in time, but that difficulty has now been overcome.
CHILDREN'S BARE LEGS.
THEORY EXPLODED. The modern fashion among. many "Spartan mothers" ■ of "hardening" children by exposing their bare legs and knees to-tho cold has,, according to a number of well-knotfn physicians, recently interviewed by a representative of the "Daily Mail," no justification whatever from a scientific standpoint. "While there is-much to be said in favour of hardening the throat by exposure of the base of the neck to the elements," one authority stated, "the case is very different with the legs and knees. The neck and throat, close to the heart, have a magnificent blood supply, and so whatever warmth is carried away by tho cold air can bo immediately replaced by the abundance of warm blood reaching the parts from tlio heart. ... "The /further away' froni the heart the worse the circulation, however, so the extremities, the hands,, feet, forearms, and legs, need all the protection they can get so that heat loss may he kept down to a minimum. Leaving tho calves and knees bare in wintry weather, while the rest of the lody is warm and snug, shows a complete ignorance of one of tho first laws of physiology." •' '.. . , Anothor physician described the bare knee and calf method of hardening children as' "directly. contrary to nature" . .. ~" .: ■ , ' "The- human body is so constituted ■ that it can manufacture within itself widely varying amounts of body heat," tho doctor argued. "When exposed to great cold it makes moro; when the temperature is high it. makes less.. What it cannot do, however, is to supply a maximum amount of body heat for- certain partu whore heat loss is rapid- and great (for example, tho bare knee and leg), and at the same time produce for the well-clothed parts where heat loss is slow > the lesser amount these parts require. ... "No doubt if we went naked alto- - getbor our ;heat-producing mechanisms would .$ thajj enoughj, heat, was supplied, T to v keep us, ,war'ni..,,.Eie,.half-and-half business; however,, is too much for natiTro, .so unless the bare _part is .close to. the heart or particularly well supplied wjth. blood-vessels (a»s, for tho face), it is bound to. get dangerously chilled if the weather is at all severe.','
HER FIRST COURT.
The London, season officially opens with the First Court on February 13, although sunshine- and warmth aro a long .v.'ay off (writes a London correspondent in tho "Otago Witness"). As soon as.tho dates of the Courts are announced, and the names submitted to the Lord. Chamberlain of girls presentable have received the Bbyal Command (tho age is from 17 to 19), tho girl is taken in hand by tho Court dressmaker, and by those who aro competent to train her for tho ordeal of making her first curtsey: to Their" Majesties (and the Court curtsey is recognisable in any assembly through which the Sovereigns pass). To a nervous girl there is moro ' apprehension than delight in tho thought of tfhat intense moment before tho Throne, under tho scrutiny not only of tho King and Queen and Royalties before- whom half the beauty and grace of the world has passed, hut criticised by hundreds who themselves have made their debut with more or less success. But that girls must abandon, hope of society who do not enter here: hun- , dreds would not venture upon the inij tiation, which is a sever© test to selfpossession and graco The Court coaches are ladies who aro themselves well versed in tho procedure of the Drawing Hoom, and the debutante is"put through her paces" many times before a mimic throne before the'actual' presentation. There are many society ladies who will not only train the debutante for a consideration, but '.'present" her. . But the- girls so presented are usually strangers; it is 'the girl's own mother as a general rule who takes her to her first Court.
"MONA LISA'S" RIVAL,
"Mona Lisa"—tho famous lady of the enigmatic ■smile, now happily restored' to the a rival (says an English newspaper).* • . What is'stated to be a new and different version of Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece is in the possession of Mr. Eyre, an author, who • lives at Isleworth, and somo critics declare.that it has claims for serious consideration as the original portrait. Its most notable feature, perhaps, is-.that on cither side of the portrait it shows tho columns mentioned by .Vasari, tho early Italian art historian, which aro declared to be missing from tho Louvro\pieturc. Tho champions of tho new vorsion point out that Leonardo himself refers to two portraits in a lettor to Marshal do Chaumont. Vasari , s description. of the portrait as having "so pleasing an expression and the smile so sweet" is also quoted against tho Louvre picture, the effect of which' has been variously described as "enigmatic" and "en- . chantingly diabolical." The Isleworth "Mona Lisa" has "a real smile."
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Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2007, 14 March 1914, Page 11
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1,022EMPLOYMENT FOR WOMEN. Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2007, 14 March 1914, Page 11
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