WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 54, 25 August 1911, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). IRISH WOMAN VETERAN. MAW FIGHTING IN CRIMEA. London, July H. One of the most interesting figures amongst the gathering of veterans present at the Coronation dinner, given in the Exhibition Hall, Belfast, on Friday, was a venerable old woman, who is, according to the records, the second oldest Crimean veteran of her sex in the world, and the oldest as far as Ireland is concerned. She had been in the firing line in many a hard-fought and historic battle, and has soothed the last moments of scores of British soldiers dying in foreign lands. Mrs. Maria Magee, who resides at Cyprus street, is a Tipperary woman, and a credit to that famous county, of which she is justly proud . The regiment to which she was attached, and in whicli her husband served, was the distinguished 57th, known as "The Old Die Hards." She travelled with her husband through India, Egypt, New Zealand and the Mediterranean stations.

In the fierce fighting with the Maoris of New Zealand, where Mrs. 'Magee saw service for seven years, from 1857, she had some thrilling experiences. The 57th, a regiment largely composed of Irishmen, were always in the thick of the fighting, and eager for it. As to their behaviour, the following extract from an official record of the war may be taken as an example:—

"General Cameron then addressed us, saying that he was about to attack and carry by assault the Kai-taka-turia pa, 6n the hill in front, to avenge the loss of the officers and men who fell at the Wairoa stream, and he knew well we would uphold the prestige of the British army. The 57th immediately begged the honor of the storming part, and that their old friends, the Tigers, should support them, which was immediately granted; and the whole force piled arms and laid down to rest until daybreak. All was profound stillness, when, as the first streaks of dawn appeared, the quiet was broken by a shell in its flight from a man-o'-war in the offing opening the ball. The force sprang to their feet as one man, fell in by companies, and moved off by divisions from the right. The 67th and 65th, extended in skirmishing order, doubled up the hill, and the attack commenced. ; The natives reserved their lire until the 57th was close up to the pa, when the dogs of war were let loose in earnest. Nothing daunted, the 57th made straight for the pa, and despite the Maori fire and tomahawk threw themselves over the palisades in every conceivable manner, and, with the old Tigers at their heels, were soon in possession of the pa. In fact, the 57th had fairly taken i: before the reserve jot properly up.' Mrs. Magee is in receipt of the old-age pension, as well as a grant from the Roman patriotic fund. ACROSS SIBERIA ON A PONY WOMAN'S 6666-MILE RIDE.

In her effort to prove the endurance of which Russian women, and particularly Cossacks, are capable, Madame Kudasheff, a Cossack lady and widow of a Cossack officer, has accomplished a remarkable feat.- The'lady has arrived at Moscow after riding 0660 miles of the journey from Harbin to St. Petersburg. She is 36 years of age, tall and spare, and has her hair cut short. She wears a Cossack tunic, corduroy breeches, liigli tpp boots, and a large Cossack fur cap. Her mount is an eight-year-old thoroughbred Mongolian pony, and has carried his mistress splendidly without undergoing any special training for the journey. Madame Kudasheff relates that she started from Harbin in the middle of May last year. Under average conditions her pony covered 12 miles an hour trotting and five miles ambling. The greatest distance traversed by her in a single day was 53 miles, and the shortest 10 miles. She took with her a cavalryman's pack, containing a change of clothes and linen, a brush and currycomb, and she also carried a dagger and a revolver. Despite the bitter cold in Siberia she never wore gloves or woollen hood, and only once had her hands and face frostbitten.

"I always !<>ol< ;iftcr my pony myself,", said Madur.it- K'ulasheff. "I groom him and feed him. The Moscow officers who have examined the pony have testified I that there is not the slightest sign of a sore on his back. As was only to be expected, I had ray adventures* during my long ride. The common people seemed bewildered by my sudden and solitary appearance, and the moat diverse explanations of it were given and credited, i From Irkutsk to Tobolsk the peasants I were convinced that I was a gendarme! in disguise, and no one would believe that I was a woman. The Old Believers in the Tobolsk Government were firmly persuaded that, I was anti-Christ. (n my masculine capacity I was more than once obliged to resort to fisticuffs. The last occasion was on the Hodinsky Plain, close to Moscow. For some reason or other the peasants in the Orenburg village of Kartamysha got it into ttieir superstitious heads that I was in the habit of conversing with my pony in German. Crowds oame to the hut where I was staying and offered me any amount of money for an exhibition of the pony's linguistic prowess. I experienced o'ne disagreeable incident after the other. At Taiga the p-i-ple came to my stopping place, bunged at the door, and demanded my immediate departure. I was not left in peace until I had fired several shots in the air. At Gorokhovtza I was delayed twelve days owing to the friendly welcome of the members of the local bicycle club who came out to meet me. The machines frightened my pony, and he backed into a ditch, straining some tendons. He was not quite sound for nearly a fortnight. On the whole, I cannot say I was a popular figure. The peasants almost everywhere treated me with distrust, and even to the Moscow Government, at the village of Kutnetzy, I 1 took three hours to find a shelter, and this was in the most primitive of publicbouses." Madame KudashclT was received in Moscow by the Grand Duchess Elizabeth and entertained by the colonel and officers of the First Don Cossack Kegimcnt prior to her departure for St. Petersburg.

A NONAGENARIAN BRIDEGROOM j

Mr. James Doughty, of Brigton (England), the oldest clown in the world, whose approaching marriage, at the age of ninety-two, ri> a woman of twenty-five was announced in a London paper recently, gives an interesting version of a conversation which led to his engagement. The old man's face is wrinkled and his hair is silvered, but his eye is bright and his handshake is one that can be felfS 'Tm going to.live to bo a hundred," he said, when interviewed at his cottage opposite the Brighton Hippodrome. "You see," he went on, "my wife had been dead these four months, and lam getting lonely. I've had plenty of trouble, and I want someone to look after me." He explained that Miss Alice Underwood, his fiancee, is a daughter ot his former housekeeper. "One day she was here,, and a friend said, 'You are very lonely, Mr. Doughty; you ought to get married again.' 'Married?' I said. "Who's likely, to marry an old man like me?' Alice looked up and said, '1 would.' 'Nonsense!' said I; but she stuck to it, and so we're going to get married." Thus did iMr. Doughty tell his story, and Miss Underwood, who was listening, did not deny his version. Mr. Doughty makes his living by means of performing dogs on the West Pier at Brighton . He has just started training a new dog. "It's a long job," he said, "but I can do it." Clowning, he says, is not what it was in the good old days of the harlequinade. He would like to put on his clown's dress to be married in, but the bride shakes her head. INFANT MORTALITY IN FRANCE.

The terrible statistics of infant mortality in France, published by Drs. Palestre and Gilctta, have (says the Paris correspondent of the Morning Leader) induced several French Deputies to put their names to an interesting measure which is now before the Chamber. The two doctors in question show that out of 11)00 deaths which occurred in towns, W7 or one-sixth are of children less than a year old, and 80 per cent, of these are the children of working people. In enquiring into the causes of this mortality it has been recognised that out of 1000 children who have died when under a year old, 766 might have been saved. Of these 385 were the result of gastroenteritis, caused by bad food and feeding from the bottle. One hundred and seventy-one were traced to overwork on the part of the mothers. The, doctors declare that in a space of six years 220,000 children have died who might have been saved. The purport of the Bill is to enable all mothers employed in factories to suspend their work for two periods of half an hour in the day in order to look after their babies lip to the age of twelve months, without loss of pay for that time. The promoters of the Bill recognise that the State ought to bear this expense as a social duty, but the State would not fail to recoup itself indirectly on the employer, and possibly at an increased cost to the latter. The promoters, therefore, prefer to lay this burden directly on the employers, who, they think, will accept it in the majority of cases not only wifckout grumbling, but even with pleasure.