WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 136, 4 December 1911, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

i ! (Conducted by "Eileen.")

J NOTES FROM LONDON.

f WOMEN'S EIGHTS IX TURKEY.

London, October 13. What Mr. Asquith finds it impossible to face the Sultan of Turkey has done, and for the first time in Turkish history a deputation of women had an audience with their ruler. Early last month the Sultan received the deputation, and promised that he would do what he could to improve the lot of the Ottoman women.

AN ENTERPRISING WOMAN.

A somewhat unusual occupation for a woman is that undertaken by Dr. Mary E. Pennington, who is making a tour of America with the object of showing merchants the proper methods of preparing poultry for storage. Dr. Pennington is now in charge of the food research laboratory of the Department of Agriculture, and lias spent the past two years in investigating cold storage for poultry.

BERNHARDT AND SUFFRAGE.

"That women should possess the vote," said Mme. Bernhardt, the famous actress, to an interviewer this week, ''is the merest justice. All the political philosophies that man has invented have as yet produced no sensible argument against woman's claim to say what shall be the nature of those laws to which she shall conform. So long as she is expected 'to be ,|;he oustodian of the children, and to rear them up to good citizenship, woman must in reason be accorded the right to participate in choosing the lawmakers who will assure her the right to educate according to her own natural and eugenic instincts, with a view to the production of the highest type. That question is one for the woman long before it becomes one for the man."

SWEATED WOMEN WORKERS.

An urgently-needed reform has this weelc come partially, and within a few months will come completely, into operation in the advance of the minimum prices fixed under the Trade Boards Act for Nottingham out-workers engaged in lace-finishing. When it is stated that in the city of Nottingham alone there are some 11,000 women engaged in home lacework, and that many of them have had to work five hours for 2y 2 d, readers will have an idea of the terrible sweating conditions under which the workers have hitherto "existed." The net minimum rates will enable the moderate workers to earn 2%d an >hour, and in every instance they will double their wages. The scheme should have come into operation in August, but a technical error in the formation of the board .threw back the date till February next. The manufacturers, however, realised the urgency of the conditions, and 125 firms have signed a "white list" to pay the new rates from to-day. A black list of those who refuse to pay the new rates until compelled to do so lias been prepared, and a union of outworkers has been formed to fight them.

GIRL STUDENTS IN PARIS.

A statement on student life for girls in Paris, made by Miss Mary Garden, an opera singer, beloved of American audiences, may interest those who have heard woeful stories of its dangers. New York, it appears, is constantly discussing the dangers that beset American girls who go to Paris to study music. "I have the usual amount of good looks," Miss Garden said, "and they say I have a good figure, but I have never yet been spoken to or insulted in the streets of , Paris. If a girl goes about thinking of her work, and minds her own business, she can avoid all danger of that sort. As to managers and all that talk, the girl who goes into opera has to keep a level head. If she is moral at heart she will remain moral." i

A NOVEL WEDDING.

A novel wedding is to take place in London in a few days, when an actress from the cast of "The Mouse" is to marry a well-born Indian barrister, a cousin of the Maharajah of Kooch Behar, who died a few weeks ago in England. After a civil ceremony at a registry office, an Indian service—that of the Community Theists—takes place at Xorbiton Hall. In the strict ritual of the faith the bridegroom should wear an ! elaborate Hindu wedding dress with j jewels, but out of compliment to his I bride he will be in the conventional English attire, while out of compliment to the bridegroom the bride will wear Indian costume. A room at Norbiton Hall is to be turned into an Indian chapel, decorated with flowers, incensed, and scented with sandalwood and rosewater. The service, though Indian, will be said in the English language, out of consideration for the bride and her father, who have to speak in some of the ceremonies, but at the conclusion there will be a short service, with hymns in Bengali. After numerous questions and answers at the beginning of the .ceremony, the bride's father, in giving her away, says quaintly: "I make over charge of my beloved daughter, prettily dressed and adorned with jewels"; and a later part of the service is the twining of a pretty flower garland and the tying of a love knot round the hands of the two parties. The following passage amounts clearly to a simple paraphrase of the corresponding portion in the English service:—The bridegroom says: "Lady, this da}-, the Holy Ghost being my witness, I take thee as my lawful wife." The bride replies: "Sir, this day, the Holy Ghost being my witness, 1 take thee as my lawful husband"; and then both say together, "In prosperity and adversity, in health and sickness, I will assiduously promote thy welfare as long as I live. May my heart be thine, may thy heart be mine, and may our hearts thus united be the Lord's. And later, instead of the "Until death do us part," they say, "'.May our friendship never be dissolved."

A FAMOUS WOMAN. 1

Xews from Paris on Sunday stated that a statue of Mnie. de Sevigne was unveiled at Yitre, in Brittany, not far from the Les IJochers, where she loved to live, and the scenery of which she exquisitely described in her "Letters." M. Paul Deschanel, the academician, delivered the inaugural address.

WOMEX AS DOG FANCIERS.

The most striking feature of the great improvement which in recent years has been associated with the dog fancier's pursuit, said one of the London journals this week, is the interest displayad ; by ladies, which, it must be confessed, has only been made possible by the elimination of the sharp practices which formerly did much to degrade the show bench. Women have shown that they can hold their own with the most experienced men as breeders and exhibitors, and their association in many ways with organisations which appeal to humanity on behalf of dumb animals has done much ro popularise those institutions.