SOCIETY AND FASHION GOSSIP.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3169, 25 August 1881, Page 4

SOCIETY AND FASHION GOSSIP.

Cobweb silk gloves are the London latest novelty. They are made almost transparent. Pink, blue, purple and black-dotted mull is used for neck-scarfs more than plain white, blue, or pink. New French stockings of silk are embroidered in gold or silver, with insertions of black or white lace. A novelty in collars has one end much longer than the other and lapped over on the front of the dress. A black and white striped silk simply made will this season be the thing, worn with a black rough straw poke trimmed with shaded red plumes. The furore for sombre materials still increases. Everything—ribbons, tulles, gauzes, flowers, and feathers—are all shaded now. In the best millinery feathers are not mixed with flowers on hats, and for travelling coarse straws will be worn, in such, tints as olive green, seal brown and clareb. Ices retaining the flavor of the fruit are introduced into the skin of peaches, lemons, pears, bananas, oranges, and even grapes, for the most sumptuous dinners. A new feature of a recent Philadelphia wedding was the large baskets of flowers placed on floral stands in the aisles, from which ladies helped themselves as they left the church. A lady tells something which ought to have remained a secret with her sex. It is that a woman in choosing a lover considers a good deal more how the man will be regarded by other women than whether she loves him herself. When the betrothal of a young lady in Boston society is announced, her gentlemen friends signify their congratulations by sending her bouquets and baskets of flowers. They call this 'the latest fashionable Parisian whim,' A young lady of New York was married the other day in the wedding gown of her grandmother, made 70 years ago, without alteration, and so similar where the styles that no one knew but it was a new one ' made for the occasion.' Scarfs of white muslin are among the summer trimmings. They are twisted around the crown and fastened at the back by a cluster of big roses, and when they aro worn in tho country the effect is good, but in a city street they become absurd. The Lillie is tho sweet name of the ugliest hat ever invented for mortal child. It has a square flut crown, and a brim that turns down everywhere except in front, where it jerks up in a pug-nosed way, and is trimmed ■with a bow of narrow satin ribbon and a cluster of silk tufts surrounding an aigrette. At a Cincinnati wedding lately the organist entertained the audience awaiting tho bridal pair by a series of voluntaries, the last of which unluckily was, ' ''rust Her Not, She is Fooling Thee,' at which he was hard at work as the bridal proceseion walked up the aisle. Economical husbands should marry Icelandic wives. Their every-day dress consists of a thick serge shirt made without flounces, und a yarn jacket, and the outfit lasts a dozen years, so that although they make it themselves they have plenty of time to do their husbands' sewing. Harper's Bazaar, quoting the Chinese maxim, ' the mother who is happiest in her girls is she wto has only boys,' remarks that the well regulated women of the Occident rejoices in the birth of daughters, because, as a fine interpreter of natural emotions lately remarked: ' You can dress girls so much more sweetly than boys.' Latest accounts from Paris afford ominus hints that the bustle is gradually creeping back into favour. There is n tendency to enlarge skirts, and they aro made with voluminous outside trimmings. The latest popular craze in America is a two-cent red stamp and a one-cent blue stamp on a white envelopo. This is especially the correct thing where young ladies and gentlemen correspond. The blending of the colour, red, white and blue, means union. It also means that the variegated billet-doux, being prepaid will go through. A French barber, referring to baldness and the credulity of people respecting the efficiency of hair tonic, says : 'During tho past 25 years thnt I have practised tho profession of hairdresser, I have made the trial upon different bald heads of more than 500 different hair tonics, and I am bound to admit that I never saw a single head the hair of which was restored after baldness. Extract from a book of South American travels: 'Never had those lonely wilds been traversed by human beings, nor did the animalsbetray the slightest fear at our approach ; indeed on one occasion when one of our negroes was paddling with his arm in the water an alligator swam fearlesssy up and bit it off without displaying the least apprehension.' Among the costumes worn at a recent English wedding was a skirt of white lace,

with a coat of terra cofcta velvet.,... ,_."ie a:.: 1 , a bonnet of white illusion trimmed with terra cofcta satin ; a primrose suit, primrose from bonnet to boots ; a gosling-given •:■•■'"- dreas and bonnet, and a petticoat of velvet brocade with goslin-green figures on a gold ground ; and a' simply simple' gown of blue, with a coarse straw cottage bonnet; tied with blue ribbon. At a recent exhibition of ancient lace in London a gentleman showed a ilounce of Flemish pillow lace, into which the cipher 'A' and two interlaced ' C's' were introduced with the insignia of the Grolden Fleece; and a lady displayed a narrower flounce of a design exactly similar. One piece of the lace was bought in Italy, the other in London, and both, r■:?. evinces, belonged to Caroline Empress of Austria. Emil Francois married a quadroon woman in Texas, where intermarriage between whites and those possessing any negro blood is a penal offence. He was convicted and sent to prison for five years. The convict received much sympathy; for liis wife was nearly white, and his love for her quite sincere. The case was carried to the Texas Court of appeals, which now declares the law under which Francois was convictod to be in conflict with the 14th amendment, and therefore inoperative. Two years of the imprisonment, however, have already been served.

The TCev. T. J. Mackey is a clergyman stationed at Leadville. In the course of an address in a Philadelphia church the other day he allowed that Leadville was a pretty lough missionary field. 'My first vestryman could drink more whiskey than any man in tho town. Shortly after I made my appearance in the town my parishioners invited me to a church sociable, and upon going I was astonished to see the worthy people waltzing and dancing in the most scandalous manner.' He soon broke up the scandalous ' round dances,' but had to compromise with the light-heeled parishioners on square dances. Beauty at the Queen's Drawing Rooms. —The show of beauty at the recent royal drawing rooms in London, is said _to have been remarkable ; but certain married ladies were considered to bear off the palm. The animadversion of the Queen on the extreme lowness of the dresses worn last year has borne fruit, as there was hardly one to which any objection could have been taken. A fashion has lately sprung up of ladies going to the Palace with gloves of every sort of colour •of this the Queen strongly disapproves, and it is expected that a hint will be given that only white gloves are to be worn in the future. Most of the carriages were fearfully shabby. There were not more than half a dozen that would have beer, considered eligible for a progress to the Palace thirty years ago. There was a thoroughly slovenly appearance about horses, carriages and servants in the majority of cases.