WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 91, 26 July 1910, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

EVILS OF TITTLE-TATTLE. •ACTION AGAINST R A. AND HIS WIFE. London, June 3. I'or live whole days .Mr. .Justice Grantham and a jury wore occupied in hearing a most extraordinary slander case, in \\hich Mr. Briton Riviere, the well-known Royal Academician, and his wife were defendants, and a Mrs. Cole the plaintiff. The alleged slander was uttered by Miv. Riviere, but the law of the land makes the husband responsible for his wife's tongue and pen, hence the R.A.'s unhappy posjtion. Mrs. Cole was the daughter of a farmer of Mundesley, Norfolk, and_ she married Cole in 181)0, one child, a girl, 'being born. Cole carried on business as a draper and grocer, but the business did not flourish. -Mr. William Suffolk ('Mrs. Cole's uncle), who li\ed at Mundesley, gave the pair financial assistance. Mr. Cole committed aif offence agains the law, and his wife, by shielding him, was also guilty of an offence, and the result was that they left se"-«f'-for London, where now and a-gair V . Suffolk assisted them. Then Cole ami his wife were arrested, the husband receiving six months' imprisonment and the wife one month. After her imprisonment "Mrs. Cole found life intolerable at her father's farm, so she returned to London, and lived in n flat with h?r unco, who kept her and the child.» S:h>ii after Cole was released from prison a collection was made anion<„ - the Mundesley people, and £3O was subscribed' to give him a new start, anions the subscribers being Mr. and Mrs. Riviere. Meanwhile Mrs. Cole kept house for her uncle. A day or so after the husband had despatched some Christmas presents to his wife and daughter in 1.008 he received a letter from Mrs. Riviere, in which this passage occurred:—

Have you ever enquired whether it would be possible for you to get a divorce without coming over? As your wife lias this other baby it ought to be easy for you to get it, as it requires no proving, and if you get it .you can marry again.

Cole's first action was to write a letter to his wife, in which he cursed her and the alleged child "from generation xo generation," and briefly addressed her as a woman "too vile to live." Mrs. Cole answered his charges with indignant denials, and demanded the source of his information. In reply Cole mentioned Mrs. Riviere' as his informant, and challenged his wife to bring an action for slander against that lady. Meanwhile Mrs. Riviere had again written to Cole a letter which contained the words:—

I cannot think you can wish for your wife to go out after what I have told you. If she came out she would only waste your money, and bring your little girl up ito be as bad as herself.

Mrs. Cole then consulted a lawyer, and entered an action against Mr. and Mrs. Riviere. The latter, )vhen called upon in court to justify her statements, made the most astounding admissions. She had, it appears, written to Cole upon the merest village gossip, carried to her via her own kitchen! Mrs. Cole had been carrying a lra'by 'by someone, that someon# had told the tale to one of Mrs. Riviere's servants, and upon the strength of this second or third-hand gossip the Academician's wife wrote to Cole accusing his wife of infidelity,. for the suggestion in Mrs. Riviere's letter was that Mr. Suffolk was the parent of the alleged baby.

Mr. Riviere's counsel made no bonea about admitting that he could produce not one jot or tittle of evidence in proof of the allegation that Mrs. Cole hpd had a child after her husband's departure for Canada. He frankly admitted, indeed, that there was no such child, and sought to defend Mrs. Riviere's conduct by trying to prove that Mrs. Cole was more to her uncle than she ought to have been. Here lie failed so egregiously that in his slimming up the Judge advised the jury that "the case is only a question of damages," and made some particularly caustic criticisms 011 Mrs. Riviere's conduct.

The jury, However, failed to agree amonij; themselves, and the ease is to be re-tried.

SURELY NOT!

As a word of warning, ttie Boston Herald savs:—"The ladies' hats may be wider next year, but if they are the railways will either have to widen the jpars or have only a single row of seats, with a passage for the conductor on the side."

THE JAPAN-BRITISH EXHIBITION. The most exciting corner of the JapanBritish Exhibition from a woman's point of view will be the palace wh«re the tableaux of British dress will be shown. Uo expense has been spared either in the painting of beautiful scenery for the backgrounds or in the dressing of the wax figures, 'which, are gowned in the most elaborate creations.

QUEEN MARY AS AN ARTIST. Queen Mary has sent a charming water-color for disposal at the carnival of the Sailors' Orphan Homes, Newland, Hull. It is a small picture entitled "On the Marshes at Snettisham, near the Queen's Bungalow," and is a line, broad treatment of landscape and cloudy. The painting has a special interest in that it was despatched when its author was Princess of Wales and arrived after she had become Queen. (Several high bids have already been made, for the pictrre.

: A TRAINFUL OF BABIES. i The New Orleans correspondent of the ! iXcw York Tribune states that ii .scene. 1 unique in its character, was witnessed at the railway station at New Orleans recently. As the result of an announcement in the papers, fully 500 women, the majority of them well dressed and apparently well off, assembled to meet a train conveying 59 ISt'w York orphan children

to the South for adoption. As soon as the train arrived the women began an eager inspection of the children, with the result that foster-pa rents were speedily found for -2~> of (|:t in . The remaining 34 were subsequently sent on to Kansas t'ity, where it i» hoped the whole of them will be adopted. At the beginning ot this month 20,000 Texas mothers sent a protest to the Governor of the State against the importation of babies from New York foundling asylums. It was alleged that iirculars were distributed widely over the -State inviting persons, iva.iViil babies to make application,! .-'.aling their preferences, and it was add-' nl that, although the applicants were asked to give reference, and although such references were not always satisfactory, no applicants were refused babies, with the result that unsuitable

people or pour people with large families, often took them in, and were unable to support them. WRINKLES OF CHARACTER. The outstanding temptation to the professional photographer, said Mr. E. O. Hoppe, F.R.1.5., in a lecture at the opening of a house exhibition' of his camera, portraits at the Royal Phonographic Society was to become a courtier rather than an artist. ' The ietoucher in portraiture had flattered public vanity and perverted public taste. Tiny wrinkle, so carefully touched out. often signified humor or patience, and was .an ind'ex to the best side of the character, and the lines and iregularities in such faces as those of Carlyle and Genera! Booth -v.ere badges of honor. The new school of professional photography aimed to show the sitter as he was, instead of giving' him a face which might be a new-laid egg for all the likeness it bore to his own.

PAINTED SCARVES. Scarves are more worn this season (says a Home writer) even than last summer, and isome of the latest developments of this ever-useful article' are worthy of note. Net and chiffon in the most delicate colorings are used, and even one tone is not sufficient, for, where effects of nacre de perle are not introduced painting of flowers supplies the decoration. All sorts of flowers in bunches scattered here and there, in long trails of such charming tints as those obtained by wistaria, in scrolls conventionalised and held bv twists and bows of riibbon, are all lavishly used. Then over the painted section of the scarf is thrown a veiling of a contrasted transparency to blend the colors and give this impression of softness demanded by the season's toilettes.

SLEEP FOR THE NERVES. Nothing is so bad for the nerves, which are, of course, closely connected ■with the 'brain, as a lack #f sufficient sleep. Thousands of constitutions have been wrecked, and! will continue to be j 'wrecked, until people learn that, »in spite of electric light and other device? for turning night into day, the night is made for rest. Observation shows that the only strong and serene-minded people are those who sleep regularly for seven to nine hours out of the twenty-four. To many this may seem a great waste of time, 'but it is economical in the end, for Mature will not be .cheated. She exacts her full price; either to-day or | thirty or forty years hence matters not, i for,she is absolutely merciless, and will [take nothing less than the uttermost. ' farthing, FRESH AIR. The greatest source of ill-health is lack of sufficient oxygen, and the foundation of the cure is simply the regular practice of deep breathing. Combined' with frequent warm baths and rough towels and short periods of absolute rest, it will work wonders. The average woman' never breathes properly, and she believes that she is too busy to find time for "absolute rest." This is nonsense. The busiest woman finds herself at times with an odd ten minutes-to spare. Let her promptly collapse into the nearess cutnfortable chair —though if she can lie down it is better —relax all her muscles, and let' her poor tired brain wander where it will, instead of being forced into any particular channel.

WOMEN AND THE ACADEMY. Whatever the popular verdict upon the 1910 Acadmv as a whole, in sae absence of any very arresting or obviously dramatic subject to grasp the sympathies of the crowd, these facts are clear (says the Gentlewoman) —that the level of work is high, that academic convention is far less narrow, and that the appreciation of tender, aerial color has I asse'rted itself in an unmistakable manner. ■lt is also pretty clear that woman is in the forefront of the Art movement which has caused these developments, and in spite of the absence of a few of the best known women artiste. Mrs. Swynnerton amoiiu: their number, the work of women's hands takes a high and hopeful place in an exhibition unusually pleasing t;o the critical eye. AWKWARD FASHION. A philosopher of clothes, having noted that the Parisienne in the hishion lies her skirts tightly round her feet or knees with ornamental ribbons and bands, and is thereby almost entirely prevented from walking, has deduced from these observations a forecast of the coming tendencies of the modern drama, reports the Telegraph's Paris correspondent. He recalls, that in the days of the crinoline, an itctress could not sit down gracefully before the audience. She might be discovered sitting when the curtain rose, but once seen standing she remained standing.. It followed that the sentiments and emotions she expressed were those suitable to an erect attitude, generous indignation, noble resentment, solemn protestations, and all thoughts susI ceptible of sustained delivery. The same • order of observations may be applied to the present fashions. Next autumn 110 .tctress will be able to walk with comfort on the stage. The slightest motion of > the feet and legs will be attended with inconvenience, besides jerking the skirt

about ungracefully. The only commodi-l ous position will be a seated one. All heroines will be discovered seated or reclining on sofas. Hence they will generally be melancholy, disconsolate, illtreated. and misunderstood perhaps, frequently widows, or pictures of injured innocence. Anyhow, the sensibility will be the rule, and all agitated and strenuous passions will be tabooed. They are all very well when the heroine's skirt allows her to stride up an down 'the stage, but with the present Paris fashions it is al- , most impossible for a 'woman to lift her ! foot up to the step of a motor car. A i mincing gait is incompatible with strong : passions. As long as the I'arisienne ties | her skirls round her feet the heroines j of the drama will have to be frail, delicate, refined, and subtle creatures.