LADIES’ COLUMN.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 84, 8 December 1914, Page 7

LADIES’ COLUMN.

The Daily Mail publishes some touching accounts of the refugees from Antwerp who arrived at Flushing., “ There came here some nuns and friars. It was pitiable to see these women of the cloister make their way through the crowds at the station, followed by bearded priests in their brown habits and sandals. The nuns go to their convent at Bar-le-Duc in France. When their long journey m accomplished they will have travelled many miles and spent many days on the way, for, to avoid danger, their route is necessarily most circuitous. Then there have also "ome to-day nuns from Antwerp known as the ‘ Black Sisters.’ They are a nursing order, and at the beginning of the bombardment of Antwerp they went to a convent in Bruges for shelter. But a bomb was dropped on the convent, and knowing how the Germans love to make targets out of charitable institutions these poor sisters have fled in terror to Flushing. One of them is 86 years old. They will sleep in the new Catholic Church to-night. All the churches here are new given up to refugees, and every child in Flushing has holiday because the schools, too, are full of fugitives. Mrs. Martin, the charming Dutch wife of the English director of the shipbuilding yard here, boarded a German liner in the docks to-day and asked the first officer to give her every blanket on board for the refugees. It was a cool request—j but if was immediately granted. The supply of straw in the neighbourhood is completely exhausted and newcomers are obliged to sleep on hard boards or stones. I asked a prominent member of the newly-formed relief committee here what Flushing intends to do with these thousands of refugees. •So long as we have food we will share it to the last with these sor-i’OW-stricken families,’ he said simply. ‘There will never be any question of .inning away ayone who asks for the poor shelter we can give.’ Yet in the hearts of almost all these refugees is a longing to come to England. They lock upon it as their refuge in time of trouble.”

* The majority of fins idd gloves are imported from France fsays a London m torn per ary). The French Consuldoner:] in Chicago has sent to his Government a report prepared by ''the principal glove importer” in that city, ..ho said that the superiority of Tench kid gloves ever all ethers was due above all to the perfection of the hi;;., the kids being reared in the hinges by poor peasants who owned

a few goats, and therefore took ■•;reat ’■are of them. Another reason •,vas that in France one va-rkman took V- prepared skin and m a:, elated it I;nself right up to *hc Tai-hed glove a Germany, on the >■< air ny, division ! hour was ori.eau c. and great a-cries turned cu; in t o or ihree "iirs what required two days’ labour cn the part of the. French workman. he best kid gloves, then, come from franco, but the ‘ factories of Stuttgart were until the war a formidable rival.

The plight of Princess Henry of I‘less, who is still in Beilin, is peculiarly unfortunate (writes a London gossip)- She is a daughter cf Colonel and Mrs. Cornwallis-West, and a sister ot the Duchess of Westminster. Her brother-in-law, the Duke, has been fighting bravely on the English side, but her husband, H.S.H. Hans Henry, fifteenth Prince of Bless, Count von Hochberg, and Freiherr zu Fursten-, stein, as one might expect from the bearer of such a name, is, with most of his relatives, fighting with the Germans. T.P.’S Weekly has an interesting page devoted to queries from people who desire friends and correspondence. It is fraught with tragedy, and yet ha s humorous feaures. For instance. a gentleman, aged forty-two, cultured, Bohemian temperament, seeks correspondence and friendship with broadminded Londoners, and an Edinburgh man of twenty-three, lonely in “digs.” seeks friends and correspondents of either sex. A lonely Cheshire lady desires correspondence not under forty, so as, probably, to eliminate the idea cf any ulterior motive, and an Irishman of broad outlook, fond of ancient literature and outdoor life, whose college friends are scattered, yearns for cheery “human” letters. A Scotswoman of thirty-two, interested in books and life’s quieter pleasures, desires to meet a companion of similar taste, and a young gentlewoman, lonely through loss of friends and uncongenial companionship, would be glad to hear from others similarly situated. She stipulates the age from 25 to 35, but does not mention sex. However, she is exacting, for she demands refinement, intelligence, and sympathy, and roundly declares she has no use for suffragettes, victims cf extreme fashion, of dowdies. Most pathetic is the wail of two young business men, “victims of life’s solitude,’’ who pant for congenial correspondents, while a young bachelor makes a very vivid similar appeal, urging he is “ bored stiff.” A sincere note is struck by a lady, a book illustrator, whose occupation is lost owing to the war, and who wants a position, her outlook being very dark. The loneliness of London is empnasised in this column.

A good story of what the Boy Scouts are doing in England was told in a recent London contemporary. It seems a reservoir which wa s being watched by some Boy Scouts was visited by the town clerk and three other municipal magnates. On arriving the visitors saw no one, and for a woment imagined the scouts, had got a hit slack and gone heme. They- were, however, soon to be enlightened, for quite suddenly up jumped a small scout from his hiding place among the bracken, and con. fronting the men, said: “I must trouble you tc tell mo' your business here.”

must come along with me.” was the reply. “ But suppose we won’t come 7 ” again queried the town clerk. Witkout replying the boy promptly blew a whistle, with the result that half a dozen more scouts quickly appeared on the scene from different hiding places, one of whom recognised the visiters, so nothing more exciting happened. But it shows how well these boys are doing the work entrusted to them. With such keenly alert guards German spies would not likely have much chance of tampering with the reservoirs.