WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 221, 30 December 1910, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). NOTES FROM LONDON. QUEEN MARY AT WORK. Were the Queen only a private individual in a high position we could not but admire the intimate interest she shows in all that concerns woman's work. As it is, with duties of State pressing on her as they do, it is an object lesson to idle beings to notice the amount of work she gets through quietly and capably. On Tuesday and Wednesday last her Majesty was the busiest of a small gathering of workers who were occupied at the Imperial Institute in unpacking, sorting, and setting out on tables many thousands of winter garments for the poor, made under the auspices of the London Needlework Guild, of i which the Queen is patroness. Shortly after eleven o'clock in the morning she arrived, and though the Royal carriage drove up at four o'clock to convey her back to Marlborough House, it had to wait a considerable time before she was able to complete her work. She supervised the opening of every crate, bale and package, saw. that sets of garments were placed together, and made frequent suggestions in order that the goods miglit be displayed in a systematic manner. Only a few gentlewomen were privileged to assist her Majesty, and thdre was so much to be done that two days' hard work was necessary before chaos and litter gave place to order and neatness. The Queen had been equally busy at the Institute throughout Tuesday. The only rest allowed was a short luncheon interval each day, when she lunched in an adjoining room of the Institute in order to save time. Last year, when Princess of Wales, the Queen provided more than 12,000 garments, and she hopes the number' will be greater thi9 year, when those in charge have had time to ascertain.

PRESENTS FROM NEW ZEALAND, j A point of interest in connection with I the nine illuminated addresses presented to New Zealand and Australia as a token of their appreciation of the hospitality extended to them on the occasion of the Congress of Chambers of Commerce at] Sydney last year by a number of British delegates is that they are the work of a woman—Miss Nora West. Each design is varied to make it specially applicable to its city, and the beautiful work was Commented on in high terms during the inspection of the presents at the London Chamber of Commerce the other day. STRONGEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.

Such a distinction is awarded Miss Margaret A. Graham, a 19-year-old native of Ludlow, Mass., U.S.A., who has been record-breaking at athletics in her own country . Her latest feat is to throw a baseball 88yds—17yds further than any other woman has. ever done. She is Bft 3%in in height, weighs 13st 71b, and has nearly a score of records to her credit. By occupation she is a "reeler" in a mill at Ludlow. In skating, her world's record time for the half-mile is limin 40sec. Despite her bulk, she has sprinted 100 yds (in skirts) in 11 3-ssec., and has swum 100 ft in 23sec. | GIRLS EDUCATED CHEAPLY.

Lady McLaren, the president of the Society of Women Journalists, holds no uncertain view about the education, or want of it, generally accor4ed small members of her sex. "When girls are bom they are less welcome than boys. They ar§ less thought of in the nursery, and their education is done 'on the cheap,"' she declared, presiding yesterday at Essex Hall, at the annual meeting of. the Society of Women Journalists. While careers were opened for young men, added Lady McLaren, young women were left to struggle. The struggle was due not to their own incompetence or want of talent, but to the prejudice against them found everywhere in society. A WOMAN AS MAYOR.

Mrs. C. E. Lees, of Werneth Park, yesterday accepted the invitation of the Lib-1 eral majority on the Oldham Town Council (Lancashire) to take the mayoral chair for the Coronation year. She has been a member of the Council for three year as the Liberal representative of one of the wards of the borough, and her value as a member of the corporation is recognised generally. She has been an assiduous and valuable member of the free libraries and art gallery, parks, and education committees. Mrs. Lees has had a long career of private benevolence and an intimate connection with public charities and philanthropy. Oldham owes much to her for the encouragement and help she has given to such movements as "the beautiful Oldham crusade" and "the garden suburb scheme."

SIR RUPERT CLARKE AND HIS NEW BRIDE. Sir Rupert Clarke, Bart., who left Melbourne for London by the R.M.S. Otway, took with him a bride, to whom he was quietly married recently (reports the 'Sydney Sun). The new Lady Clarke is well known in both Sydney and Melbourne, her remarkable figure and exquisite dressing having always commanded attention, She was born in Victoria, and her maiden name was Constance Waugh Adams, but she has always been known as Miss Connie Waugh, a name which she adopted when she went on the stage. She is a fearless horsewoman, and one of the few of her sex who holds the London County Council's certificate as an expert motor-car driver. Sir Rupert is in his forty-sixth year, having been iborn on March 16, I'BGS. This is Sir Rupert Clarke's second venture into matrimony. In 1886 he married Miss Aimee Marie 'Gumming, a daughter of Mr. Thomas Cumming, a well-known Victorian. She was success- j ful in a divorce suit brought against her, husband in August last year, the present Lady Clarice being cited as co-re-spondent. As soon as the decree nisi was made absolute the petitioner married Sir Philip Henry Brian Grey-Egerton, and now resides in London.

STARTLING MODELS. In demure contrast to the sometimes startling models in the shops the dresses worn in the new musical play, "The Quaker Girl," of which all London i 3 talking, and these are quite expected to have an immediate effect on ladies' fashions. In the play, a French modiste, lighting upon a Quaker dress

in an English village, makes a declaration that she will introduce it to Paris as the dernier cri. And the second act shows that this modiste has kept her "word. The gowns worn are modernised Quaker dresses, designed without any extravagance of simplicity, so that the firl of to-day would wear tliem without eing remarkable or attracting undue notice. These are of a soft shade of grey, »imply made and trimmed with real lace, while the aprons of chiffon are cdped with lace. The caps, too, are of the laae, and over tliem are worn the typical Quaker hats. And in all probability the iomure little bonnets, referred to elsewhere, will have many enthusiastic wearers. It is Miss Gertie Millar who is the introducer of the Quaker styles.

ABOUT RUBIES Color is the chief criterion of quality in rubies, says Mr. R. Burnett, in a very interesting article in Chambers' Journal for November oil "Colored Gems in Jewellery." "They make up best with diamonds, but go well with pearls, and in a less degree with opals. In very small sizes they combine suitably with aquamarines, the glitter of which is apt to give a cold appoarance to jewellery without a touch of warmth such as brightlycolored rubies supply. Ordinary quality [of rubies would cost about five to ten 1 pounds per carat, but the" very fine pigeon-blood variety may run to anyj thing over a hundred pounds a carat. They are the most costly of all gems, partly from scarcity, partly from the (unique fascination of their color. In consequence many inferior stones of allied formation and color are made to do duty as real rubies. Colors are deceptive, and can be wisely selected only by comparison. Ladies, too, in buying expensive colured stones, should not allow their instinct for matching colors to be | unduly influenced by a frock or a liat they may possess for the moment. A more important point for those buying gems of this kind is that a large trade is now done in 'reconstructed,' and more recently in 'scientific' rubies. These are actually ruby material, ground down, colored, and scientifically re-made to give an appearance equal to the finest real gems. They are powerfully crushed together in order that they may have the same density, hardness, and other qualities as the natural stone —the only difference, according to the advertisements, being sentiment."

WAGES OF SIN A curious double tragedy is reported from Pittsburg (U.S.A.) The police have discovered the dead bodies of Dr. George Stewart, a prominent young physician, and Eva Wallace, a beautiful woman of the iower world, in his own house in Pennsylvania-avenue. Dr. Stewart was to have 'been married the very next week to a Virginian girl, and Miss Wallace, a woman who ran an evil resort in the Tenderloin section of the city, and had been his friend for some years, had presumably been told about it. The police found his wedding suit torn to ribbons, i while the condition of the room in which the bodies lay indicated that there had been a fierce fight before the fatal termination. . The doctor was a man of slender build, while the woman was of commanding stature, forty years of age. Surgeons say that neither of the shots which had penetrated Dr. Stewart's body from behind could have been self-inflict-ed. Miss Wallace had a bullet wound in the centre of her forehead. The barking of a pet dog which had not been fed for two days attracted the attention of the police, who were reluctant to break into the house, for Dr. Stewart was supposed to have sailed for Europe.

WOMEN BULB IN TEHUANTEPEC. Woman dominates the city on the torrid Isthmus of Tehuantepee. Here her rights are recognised and undisputed. The women run the place and do 90 per cent, of the business. A striking characteristic of these Tehuantepecian. beauties is their commercial enterprise. In the market place, where most of the bartering is done, they reign supreme. The wife owns the property, she holds the family purse strings, and she must even vouch for her husband before he can obtain credit. Not only are the women the power in the district, but they are fully aware of it; they delegate all of the menial work, save the cooking, to the men, and devote their energies to trade, | which is so fully in their hands that all commercial transactions in Tehuantepee are done by them or require their sanction. They are Tehuantepee—they in their barbaric colors —treading the earth as if it were theirs, while the little men shamble about with the doss, the one as degraded as the other. The greatest power in the entire district is, indeed, a certain old woman who rules the countryside by means of her wealth and shrewdness. Through money-lending she has got many of the people, officials and civilians, into her hands, and is therefore in a position to have her advice accepted and her dictates obeyed. Every important transaction, political or "financial, requires her approval; no official could be elected or hold office in the district fbr a minute unless given her support; illustrious strangers would not dream of crossing the isthmus without stopping at her plantation to pay their respects; the railway contractors depend on her to keep their turbulent workmen in order, and the President himself is not above seeking her advice. General Diaz has always had a warm spot in his heart for Tehuantepee, very much as you always regard with a certain liking' the boy whom you once licked; for many years ago—he was plain Captain Diaz then—he was the commander of the little garrison here and quelled a revolt by clapping all the women into gaol. The next morning there were no tortillas and there was no one to prepare them, land, as revolutionists get just as hungry ' as anyone else, the resistance of the dis- : laijected (Citizens was quickly broken. The story is true, for the President himself 'has told it.