WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 308, 7 February 1910, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

FASHION NOTES. Although the blouse will not be considered this season exactly the correct nvear for smart evening functions, its possibilities are many for such occasions as small parties, quiet little dinners, and informal gatherings of various' sorts, and as a means of wearing out skirts (which are no longer fresh enough for ■more dressy occasions, the smart new models which are shown in all the shops (Will be eagerly welcomed. When composed" of some soft dainty material in the same tone of color as the skirt with which it is destined to ue Worn, a blouse can be made to do duty on even more important occasions than 'those mentioned, and will be found a most useful addition to any woman's wardrobe. For morning and' afternoon 'wear there is really nothing more useful than a blouse, and when it accords in color with the skirt it is practically k bodice, and in this form the costume Ss admirable for afternoon wear. Linen, Japanese silk, and shantung silk are ad mirable for the smarter blouse and skirt costumes, and as they are cool 'and by a little trimming always look well, their usefulness is unlimited. Buttons and braid play an important part in the decoration of coats and skirts. The buttons are of all kinds and of singular shapes, oblong, diamond, triangular, and square specimens being 'much in evidence, ffhe 'braiding of Coats and skirts is also most elaborate, tind appears on coats in all sorts of Unexpected places. Few dress accessories have of late received so much attention as belts, the importance of the waist-line as a factor in the ensemble of the toilette being generally recognised by modistes. Some favor has been shown to the narrow belt (worn during the Empire), with long ribbon ends' reaching down to the fekirt hem, but fashion tends more hi the direction of round belts without <?nds.

The "little finishes''' to a country frock are very important to the effect. The turn-down "Peter Pan" collar is now greatly worn in place of collar-bands. It has conquered great favor, and with tuffs to mateli certainly gives a charming effect of freshness and youth. The sets are beat carried out in 'soft muslin, embroidered in colors to match the ■frock, or all in white. The edges are often scalloped and worked round in ■buttonhole stitch in white or tinted cotton or filoselle, or a small frill of lace edges both collar and cuffs. When the heck is very long and thin, a turn-down collar is not advantageous to the appearance; but this difficulty is met by tying a piece of white tulle round the throat above the "Peter Pan" collar, fixing it down -with a few small pins Inside the dress. WOMEN WHO HAVE FOUGHT IN DUELS. There are many instances on record of desperate duels being fought by women. In a Georgie newspaper of 13th •August, 1807, the following story is related:—"Last week a point of honor was decided by two ladies near the r-outh Carolina line, the cause of the quarrel being the usual one—love. The object of the rival affections of these ladies was pres'ent on the field, as the mutual arbiter in the dreadful encounti r. and he had the grief of seeing one of the suitors for his favor fall mortally ■wounded in the eyes. The whole business was managed with the greatest decorum and inflexibility practised on such occasions, and the conqueror was immediately married to the 'innocent' s'econd, conformably to the previous conditions of the duel." A famous French dud took place in the gardens of Versailles, in the July of 1721. between two great Court beauties, the Countess of Polignac and the Lady do Xesle. It appears from a long narrative of this Parisian sensation that at a grand fete given by the Due de Richelieu the Lady de Ncslc "sprang on the Cou;ites*' like a tigress, and attempted 'o tear a diamond necklace from her. Failing in this, she snatched the roses from her rival's bosom—rivals for the •love' of the Due—and flung them in the face of her hated rival." Out of this sprang a duel between these beautiful furies, and it was fought at six in the morning on 10th July near Paris. They •lived one shot at each other without ■effect. Whereupon the Seconds rushed in to prevent bloodshed. But this was no ordinary Parisian duel. The ladi.-s Mood was up and their hatred cordial, So they blazed away, and finally were 'ooth wounded .severely. At a Court ball in Paris .on the night of 21st. January, 1772, two great ladies —Mdlle. de Guignes' and Mdlle. d'Aiguilion—had a furious quarrel for precedence on entering the supper-room. Neither would give way, and on both iicing pushed aside each seized a knife and fought in the garden, both being .seriously injured. Mdlle. Moussin, of the time of Louis the Fifteenth, a beautiful woman and charming vocalist, was so nimble with tither sword or pistol that Parisian gallants fought shy of her. Three did accept challenges, and she ''pinked" each fof them fatally. She afterwards killed her fencing-master. Lola Montez—lßlß-ISol—was the most notorious adventuress of her day, and •was as clever with the rapier as with the sword. This extraordinary woman was born of mixed Irish and Spanish parentage in Limerick, and after an infamous career drifted to America, where she delivered a series of addresses on her adventures. A journalist engaged

•n a Californian newspaper attacked Lola, and Lola sent him a challengepistols or swords. The journalist preferred to war with the pen, so Lola lay in wait for him in a public street and gave him a thrashing. This extraordinary woman was a "dead shot" and engaged in many frays, but she was never challenged to fight a formal duel, which she certainly would not have refused. She died, in great poverty it is said, in a fisherman's hut on Long Island. BEST MARRkiNG COUNTRIES. Where in Europe lias a woman the best chance of securing a husband? Sir J. A. Baynes had much to say on this subject in his inaugural address belore the Royal Statistical Society. A generation ago, he said, the marriage rate was held to be a good barometer of prosperity, but new factors had entered into the case. The main thesis was, no. doubt, still generally ■true, that wherever there was room for two to live together up to the conventional standard of comfort a marriage took place. Statistics indicated on the whole a slight falling-off in the general rate during the last thirty years, more pronounced among the already low rates of Scandinavia than elsewhere. It was in the south that a woman seemed to 'have the best chance of a husband, though from Denmark southwards Central Europe was apparently on the up-grade in thin line. Of all the progressive countries, 1' inland presented the greatest falling-oil'. In Ireland there was a declrae of nearly 19 per cent., and in the last decade less than.a third of the women were married. The increased avoidance of matrimony was most marked throughout the United Kingdom and North Scandinavia; and this in the northern aggregate almost neutralised the growing connubiality of Germany and most of its neighbors, and even of the already much-married Italy. People got married a little more than they did a generation ago, and in most countries they married earlier, but the growth of the relative "number of the married had been accompanied by a material decline in the birth-rate. The community was therefore almost everywhere becoming an older one.

DO WOMEN LOVE MARRIAGE? A crowded cathedral; above and beyond a vista of fluted pillars stretching into a wonderful distance with vaulting over all touching the heart of the least imaginative of us. All around are monuments to an illustrious and gallant past, tablets and epitaphs recording vanished lives and forgotten glories. Far forward, within a stone-screened choir, a man and a woman stand side by side in the aisle, having apparently some serious business wjth a grave and portly ecclesiastic. Lower down a truncated procession awaits them, a procession, as we quickly gather, of bridesmaids, a father, and a best man. The congregation has no eyes for the wonderful building, no thought for the skill of builder and mason who ages ago reared this' noble monument to faith, no notion of the epitaphs and their recorded dead; their business is with the living. For once at least the ceremony, its religious significance, and the place or forgotten—all are intent on those twain who stand up to make what is too often an idle vow "in the sight of the congregation here present." You would find women very largely predominating in the self-same congregation, but after all that is' almost universally the case in such gatherings nowadays. Look closer. The participants disappear for a moment or two, and a murmur of widespread talk is heard; then a rustle and a flutter, and the great organ peals out a joyous strain—uplifting all to gaiety, if only transiently—"The Wedding March," the bridal procession with radiant, bride and -:iervou»'-looking groom. In due course the wedding guests are accommodated with seats in carriages drawn by prancing steeds, and drive away—of these driven guests women are once more the large majority—and then an empty, desolated place? The great group of women left behind tell us otherwise. Who and what are they, and what bring.! them thither? -lc- l quaintances of the contracting parties s'ome of them, but many more drawn by curiosity or some motive, they know not what, to witness this plighting of tro,tli. They are of all ages, married, marriageable, and unmarriagea'ble. What is this touch of sympathy which has drawn them to witness a ceremony which most of them have witnessed time upon time?

The cynic tells us that it is' merely the manifestation of the desire of the fox who has lost his tail to sec other foxes lose their own appendages. But it is' not only at weddings that women's interest in matrimony is manifested. Most of them are agencies for the drawing of those around them into dual harness. Apart altogether from the efforts of mothers to carry off their daughters, most married women down to the newest rejoicer in that s'tatus delight in taking a hand in this great game. Men and women, friends and aequaiutances, come alike to their net, showing so clearly to the impartial observer what is their notion of the married state—that it is, a happy state and one to be adored. And whilst most of their victims pretend to a lordly dislike of the whole business and to an active hatred of the loss of liberty which marriage entails or is supposed to entail, yet deep down in their hearts is the wish some day, at some vague and indefinite futurity, to play a leading part

.in a newspaper announcement which shall conclude with "the happy couple i then left for Peru, where the honeymoon is to be spent." Actually, of course, among the bettor classes marriage brings greater liberty, and it may be a reason for looking upon it favor- . ably. Whatever is the true position, : undoubtedly a girl who has gone through many seasons without producing a ceremonial of the kind to which we have referred is looked upon as a social failure. How, then, shall we say that women do not love marriage? The most hardened of them cannot but be softened by the thought of all its' wondrous possibilities; and whether women love or condemn it, in fact all of them, even those who profess the most unroaj soning and determined opposition, •eom to accept the chance which comes their way. —Sour (i rapes.— It is a quaint sign of our over-civil-isation and degeneracy that a doubt should be possible on such a topic. And yet there is a doubt. With a large excess of women in our population, many of them of necessity are shut off Mom this great joy of life, from full living. They affect to despis'e it, and the over-educated of them profess actively to be opposed to it, since they fancy that it may mean death to their unwomanly (that is not essentially womanly) ambition. Such women imagine that they make for progress by decrying the trammels of wifedom, ignoring the fact that disobedience to great natural laws can only bring disaster. They are appalled by the sacrifices' which women are called upon to make when th«y marry: but then are the sacrifices only by the women? What numbers of men have given up ambitions for marriage, the comfort of bachelordom (and it lias its comforts), and the freedom from worry and financial trouble! But perchance these good ladies are really conscious of their own deficiencies in all those qualities which go to make the perfect woman and the perfect wife —after" all we like that we excel ifff and they may well excel in other ways. Or, and more reasonably, they find so many men resolve after marriage into mere despots, and are unwilling to sink their individuality. Yet this arising of despotism must depend on each individual wife. Those who fear it are strong only alone, and cut off from intimate relations—strength is so easy in s'uch a case —lack strength when faced with the strength of another. Undoubtedly a new and more rational idea of marriage, perchance a more equal idea of it,°is springing to life in our midst, and it cannot have the effect of making women love it less. The true reason, however, for most of the burdens of marriage, as for the burdens' of the poor, as a°wellknown writer of plays has lately pointed out, is poverty. But even the prospect of poverty does not keep women single. With that devotion to the cause in hand for which they have always been remarkable, women are ready to accept with cheerful faces the rough with the smooth. .More faithful, more trusting as they are in wedded life, from their yery fidelity t* an undertaken cause, and knowing it as they must know it, surely they must love marriage.