The Ladies Magazine.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2413, 30 January 1909, Page 9 (Supplement)

The Ladies Magazine.

A WOMAN AT BAY„ An Italian woman, Sibil hi Alonuin by name, baa lisoit in revolt against Ivor husband. Wife and mother, though she- is, slip lias broken Uu her Lome rather . than .submit to the “inferiority” to which she think..; herself .subjected to under preyent conditions of marriage. ‘She urges othei women to follow, her example, and in a published conic, sion, - entitled, ‘A Woman at Bay,’ she gives the reason for her conduct. Condemning a conjugal life based bn the submission of mie sex to the other, Mrs. Aleramo proclaims the right of a woman to free her own sou! from the yoke oi a. man, whose ideal-; she deems unfit, und to leave not only Iter hrsbaml. hut also her child rest, if that is necessary, to r.i-cert her dignity as an m dividual. These things she lias done. In the words of one of her woman defenders; “Whh th id woman a new world arises: a worhl in which a fresh young creature, full of courage, jooks af a man with clear and spiritual ovr--. and nays to him. with a mingling of deep gravity and light irony: 'Bo at once proud and strong in love, and understand ! Have the power to subjugate our souls as well, or leave us at liberty.’ ” The writer’s own life, storv. is a poignant revelation of the attitude of millions of husbands towards their wives, of which she regards her own ease as typical and signifieent. Hers was an .early marriage, haying its inception, on her side, in an ignorant idealisation of wedded life. She wa’ke.s to find herself jealously looked unon by her husband as merely a p’oee of property, a confluent noon wmpli lie feeds his compliance and his vanity. ITe won her virtually by physical force, and as time gore on be fear:, to lose her-—first through - Avcll-groumled suspicions of his fidelitv. and later through his own unfounded suspicions of hers. And so with a priipbive blindness to the ■psychology of the situation which would he ludicrous hut for its brutality, lie seeks by force, physical and implied, to cow her into what he considers a proper attitude of submission to liis will. MOTHERS SOMETIMES TO BLAME.

For the sake of her child she appear* to submit, hut the triumphant insolence of her husband, his inability to look upon women as anything more than something to he possessed and caressed or not at his pleasure, finally goads her to revolt. Of this period of her life she writes: ‘'Then I began to wonder if some share-—and not a light share, either —of the evils of society were not to be laid at (lie door of the women. How could a man who bad a good mother he cruel to the weak, disloyal to the woman he loved, tyrannical to his children? But the good mother must not like my own. he simply an example of self-sacrifice; site must bo a ■■woman, a human' being. “And how i.s she- to become a woman d her parents deliver .her, ignorant. weak, incomplete, into the handful a man who does not regard her as an equal, treats her' ns~ a piece of property belonging solely to himself, gives her children and then leaves her alone with them, fulfilling his own social duties and lofting her continue •t° amuse herself in the same wav as when she was a child? "Eyou' since reading a study of the feminist movement in England and Scandinavia these reflections had been revolving persistently in mv brain. I had instantly felt an instinctive sympathy for those incensed felknvcreatures who were uttering their pro. tests in the name of the universal dignity of the race, going so far even s ; to sacrifice .1 heir most sacred privileges—love maternity svmpathv. MAN' AT WAT? WTTH NATURE. “Humanity? And who would dare defend it in a ionnula? In reality -woman, a slave up to the present time, ■was completely ignored/ and all the presumptuous psychology of the novelests and the moralist, a did but betray the inconsistencies in the elements out of which they had built their arbitrary theories! And man. man did not even know himself; without his complement, alone in the world, to evolve, to enjoy, to struggle; stupidly cutting himself off from that spontaneous, comprehending smile- which might have opened hi.s mind to the entire beauty of the universe, he remained either weak or savage, ecjuallv incomplete. Both the one and the other were to be pitied, though in a different measure. ■’None of tkr ’• ;ks i read were .able to overt hr. w these recent convictions oi me, ;..id none of them made -a very d ;> impression upon.me. I realised that my -critical faculty, alter its long paralysis, bad apparently widened and intensified. At the same time- there awakened within me a h:iter : onsc of longing for all that had irremediably been neglected in the .system of mv education; poetry, music, artistic expression both in color and form, remained almost unknown to me, -while my entire being reached for the joys which such things bring.” Finally .in despair of ever being the woman and the mother to her. young son which her ideal of -.these relations demanded, she lorsook both her husband and-—till better days should come —her child. She went out into the world of higher things—of literature, of the reform of abuses and of service to the race itself. And now, at Rome, where she lives, she gives her services freely to a, hospital for infirm children. and has become a "social inothi’ r ‘”. other Roman ladies she lias instituted secular Sunday schools in the Roman Campagna—a feverstricken desert, where nomadic peasants. absolutely ignorant -and derived _ °f almost all the necessities of lifelive in prehistoric huts. In person she is a creature of tenderness, of attraction, of 'kindliness. An avowed Bohemian, she astonishes settled women, above -all those who try to ap-•-•.pear -sedate,' .come what will. ■

Progress is 'killing good humour. Fngiiie-d livers are not so gay as 1.1)0 postillions of the ancient diligences used to he. Ami now wo have the chaffeur—dumb, stern, and worried—replacing the loquacious and jovial coachman.—“ Figaro.” Paris.

The whole object of literature is to prevent truths becoming truisms.—C. 'V Tv. Chesterton.

HiNTS FOR HOT WEATHER.

KEEPING THINGS COOL

Though just ..at the present time <tvc .ire having a tew 'wintry days, (says a '.ady writer in a recent Melbourne ••..•'Argus”)' we .know thitt hot ones wit xm come again, and that we shall have to f,too the difficulty of keepng things cool. Our houses are hot iid close; our bread dry.; our 'butter has a horrible tendency to become oily ; the milk goes sour or becomes thick; the meat is uninviting. v »yr>u Will (Ml it jiisii £UTivdJs> i roni t»)u' butcher"; and the housewife, .is in perpetual search of expedients to lessen these troubles, any of which in ay happen occasionally, in spite of > do. her vigilance. We arc growing wiser by degrees ; we are learning that even Then Tee fails, as it did at the worst ; iiue of all last, year, it is still posible to keep butter cold, if. not to save the milk. AA r e have not yet succeeded in building houses adapted to Vue climate, (but shutters and shade bunds do something to ward off the fiercest heat. Curiously enough, very *fcw people, make use of water to lower the temperature within the house. Where * short screens or curtains, which oin easily be washed, are used, it is an excellent plan to make them wet — just enough not to drip. The cooling effect will be perceived immediately. (Failing the short curtains, a towel soaked in water can be hung over, the open 'window, or the outside shade blinds drenched with a current from a, hose'. Where it is imperative to keep down the temperature of a room, as in ease of sickness, a hose playing on the outside \va:M, or ini the .ground outside the window, is .i valuable' help. Both those methods were used with splendid results in a case which came under my notice last summer. Wot sacks on the roof arc, of course, usually resorted to. Bose water or eau-de-cologne sprayed about at intervals makes a hot room distinctly cooler and fresher. Other perfumes do not evaporate so completely, and veuve .a stale smell after their use. A little eau-de-cologne added to the bath, too, makes it much more refreshing. In the larder there are, fortunately, a number of things which may be done to help to preserve food. The principle of the hessian safe is very generally applied now in our pantrios. The little safes, with a leceplacle for water above and below, and a covering of towelling reaching from one to the other, are constructed on tliis principle. The evaporation ffrom the wet cover uses up the heat from the air both inside and immediately iurroundng the safe, for water, of course, cannot be converted into vapour without using up bent. For my own part, I prefer a cover of some material more open than towelling, because it admits' more air to the safe. But when a lighter, thinner stuff is .used, more attention is needed to sec that! it is kept constantly wet. The safe must, of eourscy.hang in a position in which it is exposed to" a "current of air, otherwise the evaporation will not be rapid enough, and the safe will become stuffy inside. tXo food should he kept in a space to which the air has not free access. For this reason an ice-chest.- is more satisfactory if it is never cr-nipß-tciy closed. The door should be open for about an inch, oven though this means that the chest is not unite, so cold. The directions always given as to airing should also he scrupulously observed.

The canvas water-hag for butter is another boon to housewives-. No -better way (.if keeping buiiier can be devised. The bag is double. The inner bag holds the butter, or anything else which it may be desired to keep cool. The space between the two bags is filled with water. Tbe bag is bung, in an airy place, and. -as in the case of the safe, evaporation does tlie rest.-. The rtd and wallknown fashion of cooling water byputting it in a bottle wrapped in wet flannel and hung in the air may be applied to milk. And another way of keeping milk cool is to stand the jugs in a tub of water -and cover each of «iiem wt-h wet b-uttereloth, of which the ends hang just into the water. It must bo remembered, of course, that an airy -place does not mean a sunny place. Tbe coolest- and shadiest spot available should bo chosen for placing any safes or receptacles for food; but 'it must be open to Die air as well.

The best way to keen ice from melting rapidly, either in an icechest or in an open receptacle, is to wrap it first in a .piece of blanket or thick flannel, and then in two wrap-pings-of newspaper. 'Salad stuffs may be served cool and crisp, even in the hottest weather, if, after standing in water for a time, they are shaken out, placed in a basin tightly covered to exclude the air, and kept in a -cool 'place, preferably nea r the. ice, for two or three hours. These facts may be well-known to many readers, but possibly there are some to whom they may be new.

SAYINGS OF MRS. SOLOMON.

oEING THE CONFESSIONS OF THE SEVEN HUNDREDTH WIFE.

(Translated by Helen Rowland.)

Go-toy my daughter! Knowest thou a num who lias lived long iiui bachelor fiat? Then beware, of him, for his ways are. full of guile and he hath not .1 thrill left. Yea, the bachelor flat is a our. o sent upon women, for, 10, though a man hath dwelt in a back hall-room of a third-rate, boarding house lor many years and hath suffered all the untold horrors of undanted socks, the moment he tuk.ei.ii a Hat the sweet feminine tiling geckoth him out and ycimicth to make him comfortable. And his, days are made sad with sofa pillows and towel racks, and oieture, frames, and .shaving balls, and footstools, until the place iooke-th iike. a bargain counter, or the spoils irom the harem of a sacked city. _ He groaneth when lie hunteth about in corners for a spot in which to stick ids forty-seventh sola pillow; ■ he curoeth when he comcth hoipe after dark and fallcth over tabourettes and other evidences of the pursuit of man; he laugheth as lie borroweth old cocks from his men friends that he may supply all of those who desire to do his darning. And to him. in matters of love, there is nothing new under the sun.

For the' mail that weddetli a widow is but No. 2.. but the woman that weddetli a bacholor-ilatleo is No. ‘l2. And when she memletii his coat and natteth his pillow, when she ki.sseth him in the cleft within liis chin and runneth her fingers through the hair, be feci el li no thrill. For those are to him hut as a tale that has been many times told.

Verily, he hath sentiments frayed at the edges and emotions worn thin with usage. His heart is patched in many places and bis illusions' are as last year’s roses—withered. Yea, his love is but as a warmedover pudding, or cold veal served upon the second day; even as secondhand furniture, whereof the interior is moth-eaten. But lie is better than nothing. Selah!