WOMAN S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 243, 20 February 1911, Page 6

WOMAN S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). YOUR ENAMEL SAUCEPAN The great—in fact, the only—serious objection that housewives have to enamel saucepans is that they chip so easily. This is generally ascribed to the fact that the "ware, is not good, but in most cases it is really due to carelessness on the part of the cook. What few women realise is that enamel is a kind of glass, and that their grey saucepan is a not very distant cousin to their new enamelled pendant. One is handled with the greatest care and delicacy; the other is submitted to very rough usage, and then the owner wonders that it breaks. Every woman of ordinary intelligence knows that if she plunged a hot tumbler into cold water it would probably crack. Yet this is what she does every day to her enamelled saucepans. Scientific tests' have proved that, while the best enamel ware will stand even dry heat, and scraping with knives and sandsoap, and the poorer makes are injured by this treatment, no ware that is made will survive being heated dry and then plunged into cold water. The average housewife has still a good deal to learn, too, about the buying of enamel ware. It is far better to get a "second" or faulty utensil made by the best makers than a perfect article from a second-rate maker. In the cheap ware the enamel peels off in large flakes, and there is only one layer; in the best quality there are several coatings, and the enamel breaks in little pinholes round the bend of the pan, instead of coming off in big pieces. The best makers are well known, and it is much cheaper in the long run to buy only goods that bear the labels of reputable firms, and having acquired the utensils, treat them with the amount of care you would give an ordinary tumbler or glass dish.

THE ROYAL LINEN There is nothing that delights the heart of the true housekeeper more than a plentiful supply of house linen. Even a store-room, with its rows of preserves and pickles, does not bring the same glow of satisfaction as comes from the sight of well-stocked shelves in the linen cupboard. Most women would deny themselves much in the matter of dress in order to have an abundant supply of sheets and towels, tablecloths and table napkins; and the account given in an English paper of the Royal linen will interest many women far more than a description of the Royal jewels. It is the work of three women to take care of the linen room at Buckingham Palace, which is a large apartment completely lined with linen presses. Two presses contain nothing but tablecloths, another table napkins; in four others there are nothing but sheets, while vast piles of towels, bedspreads, pillow-cases and d'oyleys are piled in the others. Some of the tablecloths are over a hundred years old; they are hand-woven, with the Royalarms in the centre, and at each corner. In the more modern cloths only a crown is woven at the corners. The tablecloths used at State banquets are worth at least fifty guineas apiece, and some of the embroidered bedspreads are much more valuable. The whole value of the house linen at Buckingham Palace is said to be about five thousand pounds. The laundry work is done by contract, and owing to the value of the linen, special precautions are taken in the laundry to save it from being damaged. The linen presses are heated by hot-water pipes, and it is part of the linen maids' duty to see that the temperature is kept at the proper height. The maids also have to enter up in separate books all the linen that is given out or come in during the day, and the chief maid has to inspect every article as it returns from the laundry, to see that It is in proper condition; any article that has been creased in the ironing or damaged in the slightest way is returned to the laundry. Twice a year an inventory is made by the chief maid and checked by the Lord Steward.

THE FAMILY SPIRir FRANCE'S SOCIAL RELIGION. M. Emile Faguet, the eminent French author, has some observations to offer on what he calls the "true French religion," in an article which he has recently contributed to the magazine FranceAmerique. There is an idea, he says, amongst German and Anglo-Saxon writers that there is no home life in France, based largely on the fact that the French language has no word directly representing the idea of "home." But if the word "home" does not exist, there is the word "foyer," which means exactly the same thing. Some writers contend that "foyer" has a finer significance even than "home," but M. Faguet contents himself with saying that it has literally the same meaning! So far from the French people ignoring i the family spirit that clings around the ancestral hearth, there is no nation that gives it so large a place in its social and juridical scheme. "It is truly a religion, a worship, an adoration, even an idol a try. _ "The family spirit is our deepest religion," continues M. Faguet, "and it is stronger among us than in any other people whatsoever. Everywhere else there is something conventional about the family spirit; in France it is wholly good, and the family spirit is the most spontaneous of all instincts. In France the family spirit envelopes not only father, mother and children, but brothers and sisters, uncles and nephews, and cousins remain throughout life more powerfully united by the idea of belonging to the same blood and by feeling that thev owe something to one another than they do anywhere else.

"Hence the laws limiting the right to leave property by will, limitations which to individualists seem so singular and so tyrannical,- and yet they are onlv the effects of our customs upon the law. It is our habit to consider the patrimony as belonging to the family and never to an individual, and the individual is never regarded as the possessor and transmitter of the patrimony. "Hence it is that France 'has been so late in recognising divorce, which has not become a part of our social system at least in this sense, that divorce of.

married pairs who have children is repugnant to our principles, which very definitely prefer that spouses suffer anything rather than break the family and cut it off at its roots. "From this family idea, which has the character of a religion, comes also the J social spirit of the French. To them! the social cell is not the individual, but the family. The social unit is not the individual, it is the family group. "It is an eminently aristocratic idea, this worship of 'the house to which I belong,' this reverence for 'my ancestors and my descendants'; but it is not confined to what are commonly termed aristocratic circles. It is as strong among peasants as among nobles, and as strong among the middle classes as among nobles and peasants. And in the ranks of the workers in the great cities it is only a little less fervent."