WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 258, 10 March 1911, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by '" Eileen "). NOTES FROM LONDON. CHRISTIANITY AND DIVORCE. London, January 20. In an able sermon on divorce, preached at Westminster Abbey last week, Canon Henson said: "Only the arrogance of a rigid ecclesiastical theory which defines the Church to suits its own requirements, can pretend that there is any consent of Christians on the question of the indissolubleness of the marriage bond. If we have regard, 10 another kind of evidence—that provided by the experience of mankind—-we shall be brought to the same conclusion —namely, that a simple doctrine of absolute indissolubleness is inadmissible. Human nature cannot endure it. Equity repudiates it. Humaneness itself condemns it

Christ has given us the permanent condition of a right handling of the practical problems. He has not relieved us from | the high responsibilities of citizenship. It is on record in the Gospel that He admitted the dissolubleness of marriage, but laid it down that marriage could only be dissolved rightly when such dissolution served the interest of purity, and strengthened the union of marriage. No cause for divorce was adequate but such as implied the destruction of the marriage covenant itself, and rendered a. fulfilment of the cardinal condition of united living impossible. He spoke, indeed, only of the single case of adultery, but his teaching properly applies to any other cause, if there be any other, which stands in the same category of moral gravity as adultery."

CENSUS FORMS FOR WOMEN. ' Numbers of letters have been received by the daily papers lately from women workers asking if something cannot be done to alter the present arrangement for filling in the census papers, and protesting that it is very disastrous to many women if their ages become public property, as they do at present, when to a lodging-house keeper all the*private information concerning her lodgers must be given, as the form is in her charge. It is not known up to the present whether anything will be done by the authorities in this matter. PINERO'S THOROUGHNESS.

An interesting article concerning Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, the eminent playwright, and his methods of work was in the Daily Mail yesterday. It appears that when a manager has a play from Sir Arthur Pinero he gets much more than the mere delivery of the completed work. This author selects the'eompany, allots the parts, designs the scenery, and instructs the scenic artists, takes over all rehearsals, and when he is ready, hands over his work to the manager to be pre sented to the public. "Taking pains," lie says, "is the only luxury I allow myself." The playwright never works in the morning. That portion of the day is given to outdoor exercise, for Sir Arthur writes his plays in the country. Luncheon is the chief meal of these working days. After six o'clock he begins work, keeps it up without interruption until 11 o'clock, has a light supper, and goes- to bed, to take up again the next day the same routine. He gives the most minute attention to every line and phase of his work, but when he has finished an act of a new play, so sure is he of himself that he sends it off at once to the printer instead of waiting until the play has been completed. ,

WOMEN AND IMMORTALITY. Of the decision of the Institute of France which recently voted against Madame Curie's admission as a scientific "immortal," the paper Mrs. Bull says this week: "It has voted, not against Madame Curie, but against the 'principle' of admitting women to immortality. Quite so. And this by the most gallant nation in Europe. Though perhaps then lies the explanation. It is your gallant man, your gushing man, your man who makes such (and patronising) remarks about 'the ladies,' with his hand upon his heart, who usually dooms us unwittingly to a pigeon-hole of sheer animalism—the mere preparing of meals and bearing of children. The possession of a genius persistently immortal, such as that of Madame Curi? the acclaimed discoverer of radium, fills', the s.irae Iloor scraping person wi'h ami trembling. Where, then, is his empire? Unless woman is kept, in the background as the brooding, breeding animal, he considers himself in uai't'cr. Hur>y h>>i tuck to her back kitchen, even if she has discovered radium, and opened for you the vasty halls of a,, limitless discovery by her brilliant, yet logical, imagination. Oh, France!" THE 3OOD OLD DAYS. Viscount Duncar.non, father-in iaw of the Dowager Countess of Bessborough (who died a lew days ago) once showed to a friend a letter which the wife of the gaoler in Galway sent to the servants of the Earl of Bessborough, and which ran thus: "Mrs. Murphy's compliments to the ladies of Wandler. If the maids would like to see Sergeant Black hang she will be happy of the honor of their company at breakfast to-morrow. I will have the pleasure of conducting the ladies to the gallows. Mrs. Murphy will take care that the execution shall be deferred till the ladies arrive." SUMMARY JUSTICE. An extraordinary dramatic revenge was that taken by three women at Myslovice recently. They discovered that they bad all been deceived by the same man, combined to invite him to u rendezvous, and then blew him to pieces with a bomb. AN OLD CAMPAIGNER.

News from Paris on Sunday stated that an old canteen-keeper, lime. Le Breton, had just died. aged eighty-one, at Vesinet. She was horn in Algeria, and became canteen-keeper to a regiment at Zouaves. She went through the Crimean, Italian and Mexican campaigns with, her regiment, and in 1871 the Franco-Prus-sian war, in which she was wounded and taken prisoner. Later she served in Morocco, where she wis agam wounded, and remained in cauiifity for a lone time. PAGEANT OF XURSIXG. A pageant of nursing is to he held in London next month in support of the Bill for the State registration of nurses.

The central figure will be Hygeia, goddess of health, supported by the elements, Earth, Air, Fire and Water, and in her train will be the spirit of nursing and science with their attendant attributes. Processions of notable persons will pass before the goddess; saintly' men and women of bygone days, inspired I by the Spirit of Nursing, will plead silently for fuller knowledge for their successors; matrons, preceded by the banner of "education," will petition for defined curricula of education for matrons and, nurses; and under the banner ''Nurses' and the Community," trained nurses will demonstrate that their work is indispensable to the nation. Lastly will follow the banner "State Registration." HONOR FOR A WOMAN. Miss S. B. Jaeksan, M.D., of Croydon, was recently appointed medical inspector of schools at Gillingham—a post for which there were thirty male applicants.

THE AUSTRALIAN GIRL. The opinion of fir. Max Her/, on the Australian'girl, given in the Berlin Tageblatt, and quoted in the Sydney 'Morning Herald, is woi'th consideration. The Australian girl is pretty, he says, jolly pretty. • 15e it admitted, some are not really pretty, they only look that way; the .shining fence of their teeth is sometimes of third growth, their complexion,, here and there, to be bought in a shop, their hair grew, off and on, upon a foreign scalp; but, in spite of all, the stranger who came to see all and touch nothing, joyously tunes up his harp to sing of the morning beauty of the Australian girl-flower. Tall and slender is she and supple, of beauteous growth and elegant figure, as girl and ■ woman of soothing softness, of fresh forms, remote alike from scraggy thinness and big circumference, walking the golden path of fair harmony. And she knows, a faithful servant, how to turn to gain the talent delivered unto her. A select taste clad the slender limbs in shrouds whose form and cut the last Parisian orders dictate. The Empress Fashion is only the four- ! weeks' mail-time late> not more, and when her edict reaches the most beloved ' and faithful, they let slide the rustling frou-frous, tic together their skirts around their knees to the joy of all larrikins, ram on to the faces hats of um-brella-size, with costly feathers or ribbons, steep as the heavens, to the distress of all husbands. The Australian woman has ehie, knows from inborn feeling what suits her, which colors and cut, and will never make a mistake about that. Her rich, full, dark-blonde hair wriggles in countless curls over her beau-tifully-shaped head of turns into the turban, as the Parisian law commanded. She is its sincere subject, follows it willingly, but not blindly. And looks well in everything she we:'--s. for she has the shapely figure, the slender body, which makes bearable even made extravagances of fashion.

THE NEW WAIST BETWEEN TWO EXTREMES. A critical turning-point has been arrived at with regard to the position to be occupied by the belt in the scheme of frock and coat designs (says a recent number of the Daily Mail)', Is it to girdle the natural waist or to be worn beneath the arms after the manner dictated by the Empire mode of dress?

At the outset of the autumn season several of the leading dressmakers adopted the high-waisted fashions and gate their toilettes the short bodices favored by the Empress Josephine and her ladies at the Court of Napoleon. One very renowned designer refused' to accept the change and foretold the present rivalry between the two fashions, asserting that the short waist had had its day too recently to please the majority now. Apparently that is what has happened. Although the shorl-waisted frock has been demonstrated at the various shows of winter modes, looking very bewitching upon mannequins of a sylph-like physique, it is quite on the cards that it ■will make the furore it did a few seasons ago, when it was irresistible.

A compromise between the opposing factions is being made by means of a wide sash that extends upwards from the natural waist-line. It is seen in satin and silk and also in embroidered fabrics. No attempt is being made to introduce the wasp waist. Hygiene and beauty alike commend a belt that spans the waist trimly but with absolute comfort to the wearer.