WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 220, 11 January 1911, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). THRASHED BY A FATHER-IN-LAW. fRAGI-COMEDY OF MARRIAGE OF COUNT AND I-lEIUKSS. American heiresses are to-day reflecting with mingled feelings about a tragic accident which has befallen Countess Irrna von Mourik de Beaufort, the daughter of Mr. M. H. Kilgallen, an extremely wealthy steel magnate of Chicago. The episode, says the New York correspondent of the Daily Mail, is a sequel to the marriage in London in September, 1IK)I), of the young American girl and a man who called himself Count Alexander von Mourik de Beaufort, "a descendant of William the Silent and the owner of a castle in Luxemberg." A few days ago the countess, seeking to escape her angry husband, fell over a balustrade in her magnificent residence at Chicago from a height of 30ft, fractured her I<nee in four places, and broke her left wrist, in addition to sustaining severe cuts on the 1 head. Now the heiress' father announces that he has thrown the count out of the house after having made him acquainted with "the power of the parental boot" and knocking him down half a dozen times.] The fact that he was knocked down and] punished severely is admitted by the! count, who publishes in the newspapers a diary of his married life, apparently in I answer to a detailed narrative of his be-1 havioirr made public by Mr. Kilgallen.

Mr. Kilgallen, who has received from the editor of the Alinanach de Gotha a telegram denying that his son-in-law is really a count, evidently intends his narrative as a warning to other American heiresses. He describes how his wife met the count at an hotel in London in (September, lßOit, how the count "steered the two ladies into a number of good people who vouched for him," and how subsequently it appeared that ''these people iknew little more about him than did my own folk." '•lt was not until after his marriage with Miss Kilgallen that I nut my son-in-law, and I. decided," says Mr. Kilgallen, '■to make the best of it, I allowed himj to make his home with us in Chicago, gave him £OO a month and paid all Iris wife's expenses. The count said he wished to obtain work, but his zeal in this direction never got beyond the point where he posed in workmen's clothes in a garage for newspaper photographs. He soon began quarrelling with everybody. Six chauffeurs left my service in quick succession owing to the count's treatment of them.

"My daughter was subjected to constant humiliation. I sent the couple to the Hot Springs, Arkansas. There the count got into trouble at the Southern Club and threatened to kill my daughter because she would not sign a blank paper.

"After .that," Mr. Kilgallen's tale of | woe proceeds, "the count returned to Chicago, where he constantly complained of the 'beastly place,' and wanted to get imck to England to 'mix with his equals.'" Mr. Kilgallen gave the count some work in New York. He telegraphed his penitence, and the countess rejoined him. A few days later she telegraphed to her father in a secret code for help. One of her messages the count wrested from a maid-servant, though the girl had concealed it in her stocking. "Three date after my daughter came to me and said, 'lt's no use; I cannot live with him.' I promised to do my best to get rid of the husband. When she went shopping the count followed her in a taxi-cab. As soon as she got home be pursued her into the library, where her screams caused a great flurry among the servants. Finally, she escaped and rushed upstaris, he following. In the flight she fell over the balustrade."

iMr. Kilgallen's narrative ends with a vivacious account of the thrashing he gave the count when he heard of the injuries sustained by his daughter.

THE LOT OF THE JAPANESE WOMAN. One of the many knotty problems which confront Japan as she expands commercially and industrially is without doubt the question of the protection of labor. The lot of her male laborers is no enviable one, but the criiel treatment to which her working girls'are subjected is, if we are to believe Dr. Kuwada, a shock to humanity. Dr. Kuwada, a member of the Japanese House of Peers, has given deeply sympathetic attention to the labor question in Britain. He has also spent several years in Europe, studyi ing its social problems. Discussing in the Shin Koran (New Public Opinion), a Tokio monthly, the condition of the female laborers in Japan, he makes a strong plea for the prompt enactment of j ja labor law edequate to restrain tho acts of unscrupulous employers: —"There are in Japan about 10,000 factories and workshops, emploving about a million [laborers. Of this total about 700,000 '' are females. As there is no law limiting the age of factory hands, almost 10 per cent, of the female laborers are under 14 years. Twenty per cent, of tho girls employed in tho match factories, and one per cent, of those.in the glass and tobacco factories, are even under 10 years." Dr. Kuwada tells us heartrending stories of how the army of 700,000 working girls has been recruited. At first, we are told, the employers bunted the daughters of poor people living in large cities, but as the supply from this source was soon exhausted, they turned to rural districts for a fresh supply. The agents of fac-tory-owners go into the country ami I persuade unsoptusticated fanners to send their daughters to the factories, explain-1 ing what a fine, opportunity the girls will) have to acquire_ refinement and culture, in the large cities,'and telling what beautiful things and interesting places there are in the city, all of which factory girls are free to see and visit on Sundays. The good, credulous men of the hamlet and village readily believe the cunning agents, and allow their daughters to go, only to see them come home, after four or live years, broken in health and spoiled in character, if, indeed, they do not die before their term expires."

MANNISH WOMEN, WOMANISH MEN. I Aeeordinj: to ])r. Dudley Sargent, director of tin; Harvard University (iym-j na.-ia, and an .expert on all statistics re- j

lating to physique, the American women of the middle and upper classes have become much more like the men, while man. by comparison, is becoming rather effeminate (writes the New York correspondent of the London Telegraph). The doctor bases his conclusions on measurements taken over a wide area in the States since TB9O, and doubts not. that similar results must ensue from an investigation into the same subject throughout the high civilisations of Europe. Dr. Sargent is not a mere advertising professor, but an undoubted authority on Jphysique in America, who commands great resp <(:*;. So far he admits that there is nothing to worry about, but he argues that there has been a wonderful lot of evolution since 1800. ''The women of to-day are more mannish than the women of 18110. Women in a savage state were so like the men in form that it was well-nigh impossible to tell them, apart. Then as civilisation progressed 'their especially feminine characteristics j became accentuated, until the exaggeraI tion was almost painful to look at. Then the pendulum began to swing the other way, and women are again be- [ ginning to look and to be more like men." I The doctor refers to statistics to show I that tho sloping shoulders of the woman loi our grandmothers' time have disapj peared, that woman's back is now better developed., and that there are other notable changes. Dr. Sargent attributes woman's gradual transformation partly to rational corsets, and still more to increased exercises, such as golf, tennis, swimming and calisthenics, and, above all, to deep breathing. Twenty years ago woman did not know how to breathe, but now children are taught in public schools. Dr. Sargent does not believe .that woman will become too mannish or man too effeminate, but that the swing of Nature's pendulum will continue until we have ideal hollies as the habitations of perfect minds. This report of Dr. Sargent's fails to mention one thing, which all Europeans in America notice, namely, that most American women walk exceedingly 'well, with good strides and a well-balanc-ed, free movement, beside which the gait of the average European lady seems mincing, and even dollish. Unhappily, few American women walk except when there is no other method of locomotion, and to possess a motor ear, according to other statistics published, many of them have even mortgaged their homes.

GENERAL. Apropos of Queen Maud of Norway, a friend who knows (says London Opinion) tells a delightful story of a curate who fell in love with her when she was in her teens. Nothing pleased her more than to visit her old governess of Marlborough House, who had become the wife of an M.P. in the West of England. Princess Maud, of course, when on these visits, was strictly incognito. And the household went on in its old and easy way. Among the visitors was the curate. He lost his heart completely to the fair visitor, and got adjacent to the proposal stage before discovering how the land lay. The postal authorities of Vienna have decided to devote special delivery vans for the transportation of the large hats in vogue amongst women of the Austrian capital. Considerable complaints were received from leading millinery firms that their costly "creations" were damaged in transit; hence the establishment of special "hat collecting" vans.