NEEDLEWORK IN FRENCH CON. VENTS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4802, 12 August 1876, Page 1 (Supplement)

NEEDLEWORK IN FRENCH CON. VENTS.

■ France, as every one well knows, is pre-emi-taentiy the land of fine linen. From a child’s pinafore to a Cardinal's Surplice every article of wearing apparel that linen can be turned into is the.object of care and elaboration ; and few English women quit French territory without providing, themselves with bhoice specimens of French lingerie. To understand, however, the enormous labor bestowed upon that portion of female dress, it is necessary to see a trousseau in hand, and to see this it is necessary to enter a'conveut. We enter, then, a large, airy, whitewashed room, with crucifix over the mantelpiece, and religious mottoes painted on-, the walls. ,It has large windows on each side, and seldom any kind of curtain to. keep off the dazzling light of midday summer. , Sitting on high benches without- backs are twenty! thirty, fifty girls, as the case may be, of all ages from four and a half to twenty-one, busily plying their needles. At each end of the room presides a sister, and her quaint nun’s garb is the only break in the prevailing monotony— a large, bare, oyerlighted room, -rows of little children and young girls in white caps, blue checked, dresses, and white aprons, Svho stitch away silently, almost automatically, while the bright summer hours pass by. As wo enter they rise, and remain standing while iwe inspect the work. The sister takes us from I one -little needlewoman to another, proudly exhibiting the stitches or. folds of embroidery she : has in hamb Their garments . are produced, i and we gaze in wonder, first at the elaborate ! piece of..needlework and then at the feeblelooking workers who had produced it. In one instance a visitor and his little girl ’ were of the party, when the comic and the pathetic were combined, the sister, with ingenuous simplicity, ofTexdng for his inspection articles of female apparel generally supposed mysterious to the other sex; while it was touching to see the wistful look of those orphan i children —children did we say I —of those living | machines —at the happy little girl who had for ; five minutes quitted the world of sport and sunshine and showers for this dreary prison. These orphans are waifs and strays, collected from Paris and the neighoring country, and, inspecting them narrowly, it was easy to see by their weak eyes, narrow chests, and stooping shoulders how much their unnatural life was telling upon a physique already but too predisposed to sickness find debility,— Pall Mall Qattlk,