ABOUT WOMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 4069, 11 March 1876, Page 2 (Supplement)

ABOUT WOMEN.

One of the latest London on dits is that the hon. Mrs Norton is to be married to Sir W. Stirling Maxwell. Miss Antoinette Stirling refused to sing before the Queen in a low-necked dress, and the Queen respected that young lady’s modesty. Cnarlotte Cushman has a hope of entire recovery from the terrible disease which has so long harassed her life. She is in Boston, under the care of an English physician, who has been very successful in treating such cases as hers and given her great encouragement.

The Countess d’Eu, daughter of the Emperor of Brazil, into whose bauds he is to confide his government during his absence in this country and Europe, is a Roman Catholic. She once made her royal papa release two bishops whom he had imprisoned, by carrying into execution a threat that she would go about in her bare feet sweeping the streets.

A daughter of the Stuarts was married to a Spanish grandee in Paris lately. This was Louise Fitz- James Stuart, a descendant of that famous General, the Duke of * Berwick, who was natural son of James 11. and Arabella Churchill, sister'of the lMce of Marlborough. He, however, bore the name of Stuart, but was called simply James Fitz-James ; his posterity have assumed the royal name. Her spouse was the Duke de Medina-Cceli, and her trousseau was the sensation, so far, of the Parisian season. The most conspicuous feature was the supply of handkerchiefs; of which-there were sixty, so covered with lace and embroidery* that there was, no actual handkerchief left. A dozen of these were worth 1,000 francs apiece; on some the embroidery of the crests alone cost 300 francs. They bore the crests of the Berwicks with those of the Medina-Coelis, embroidered in gold by means of a metal thread which washing does not affect. The Duchess’s corbeille further comprised cachemires in all the colors of the rainbow. One was white, came from Persia, and was embroidered in gold and torquoise. At the wedding the bride wore a white toilet, with a long lace train adorned with bunches of orange blossoms. - The Court of Appeal has decided a curious case, in the manner which will best recoin-; mend itself to the advocates of women’s rights. A Mrs Jackson had settled her property on her niece (and addpted daughter), the niece having married her nephew - and on the survivor of them for life, but on condition that, if her niece died and her nephew married again after his wife’s death, the income should pass to - some one else. The case supposed happened: her niece and adopted daughter died, and the nephew married again ; but Vice-Chancellor Hall ruled in the lower Court that the proviso was invalid, since provisions in restraint of marriage, though they might be held good In the case of a woman, could nfit be deemed valid in the case of a man. Lords Justices James, Mellish, and Ba'ggallay, however,. on Tuesday overruled the decision, pointing out that this was the first time the question had ever come up for decision, and deciding that there is no legal difference between such a provision for a woman and such a provision for a man. That certainly seems the common sense decision. Whatever the sentiments of the case may be, there can be no public policy requiring us to quash all such provisions tending to deter men from remarrying, any more than there is ’in the case of women. As far as the policy is concerned, the question of remarriage is probably a matter of profound indifference, and one'therefore on which testators’ caprices, however they happen to fall, ought to be carried out.