WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 107, 13 January 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen.") SOCIAL NEWS. PERSONAL ITEMS. Dr. Biackley and Mr. Walter Weston are at present in Rotorua. Mass Atkinson, who has 'been the guest oi Mrs. Hunter, Hamilton, has returned to New Plymouth. Miss D. Bedford has returned from Wellington, but Miss Brewster remains to contest in the Dannevirke tennis tournament. Mr. and Mrs. Perry leave on Monday on a visit to Gisborne.

Mrs. Arthur 'Hempton, Whangarei, is visiting, her mother, Mrs. William Bayly. Mr. and Mrs. Collins return to-night after a pleasant trip to Nelson and Wellington. Mr. and Mrs. Quilliam, accompanied by Mr and Mrs Leo Horrocks, have been on a visit to Rotorua, but returned last Wednesday. Dr. Milroy has been hurriedly called away to Dunedin on account of the health of his father.

Mr., Mrs. and Miss Holben, Palmerston North, are on a visit to New Plymouth, but are at present up the Mountain. Mrs. and Miss Hoadley, Gisborne, are at present visiting New Plymouth. Mr. and Mrs. Beamish (the latter a sister to the Misses Humphries) have returned to Hastings, after a pleasant trip to New Plymouth. Mrs. Jas. Noble, of Hamilton, intend* visiting New Plymouth shortly, when she will take a furnished house. Mrs. R. A. Gray, who has been visiting Devonport, where they took a furnished house, returns on Monday by the «.b. Rarawa. M.r. Birde, of Hamilton, has been the guest of his aunt, Mrs. Roy, but has now returned. Miss Bedford leaves on Tuesday for Taumarunui (including the Waitomo Caves), thence to Auckland. HUSBAND - SHOOTING BECOMING POPULAR IX AMERICA. San Francisco, December 13.

In the United States one of the most popular amusements of married women is the shooting of their husbands. It is a sport that is entirely 1 safe, so long as the shot proves fatal, and no one is harmed except the unfortunate husband. To be sure, the wife occasionally has to go through the humiliating formality of a trial by jury, but her acquittal is certain to follow the story she recites of ill-treatment; sometimes she is liberated without even being bothered with a trial. Let no one 1 say the age of chivalry is past. Within the last two weeks the newspapers have recorded the freeing of three husband-slayers. The most sensational instance is reported from Denver, Colorado. Mrs. Gertrude Gibson Patterson went for a walk one evening with her husband, Charles A. Patterson, in the suburbs, and, drawing a pistol, killed him. She was tried for murder. Her story on the witness-stand was rather unusual. She admitted having left her husband for another man, with whom she went to Europe, and who gave her large sums of money. However, she said also that her husband had forced her to maße the trip with this other man in order that she might "bleed" him. The subsequent quarrel with the husband, which led up to his shooting, seemed to be mainly in regard to which of them was entitled to the money that was the outcome of the European trip. A roar of cheers went up outside the courtroom when the verdict of not guilty was announced; and inside, when Mrs. Patterson stepped forward to thank the jurors, she was almost overwhelmed with congratulations from the crowd that had gained admittance.

In San Francisco Mrs. Mary Sudall, who shot her husband when, two weeks after she had obtained a divorce for cruelty, he came to her and demanded possession of some jewellery, was acquitted upon her trial for murder. Her story was that her husband often beat her, and that she shot in self-defence.

Mrs. Anna G. Langley, who is young and beautiful, was not even required to stand trial for the shooting of her husband, James Langley, in San Francisco. She had attempted to induce Langley to return home and stop drinking. His reply was to taunt her with disgraceful acts, and she drew a revolver and killed him. When the case came up for trial the prosecuting officer stated that ho was convinced there was no possibility of a conviction, and asked for a dismissal. The judge granted it, saying a trial would only be a waste of time and money. Ih this case the grand jury had refused to indict. WOMEN FARMERS A Belgian correspondent of the London Standard gives an interesting account of what is being done there to fit women for work on the farm. The number of women engaged in agricultural work is no fewer than 314,000, whereas the numbers engaged in commerce and industry are respectively 35,000 and 32,000. Dairying and poultry-rearing are practically in the hands of the women altogether. According to the In-spector-General of Agriculture, the annual milk yield of the country amounts to £14,000,000, a sum about equal to the total annual railway receipts or the average output of the coal mines, while the yearly revenue from poultry would do more than meet the War Office estimates. There is an old proverb that "the farmer's wife can take more out oi the farm in her apron than the ploughman can put into it with a four-horse team," and recognising the truth of this, the Belgians have determined that every girl on the land shall have an opportunity of becoming a thoroughly efficient housekeeper and farmer's wife. Largelv as a result of the teaching at the housewifery schools, as they arc called, and the work of the associations of women farmers, which provide professional instruction for women in country districts, the great majority of small cultivators are prosperous and have comfortable homes. Instruction of a similar kind is given in England, but is successful only with an entirely different class of woman. In England it is the highly educated women who are showing an interest in improved methods of agriculture, while in Belgium the rural leaguers are almost entirely composed of the wives of small working farmers. In England the latter are occasionally interested by the courses of lectures arranged by the county councils, but it is comparatively rarely that permanent benefits ensue. A majority of the Women's Agricultural and Horticultural Union in England prefer a small mixed farm, where market gardening and dairying can be combined; but a few are more ambitious. Two cases are mentioned of worn ent managing large holdings successfully, and the number of such cases will no doubt increase. THE SHEFFIELD CHOIR LASSIES.

Some of the Yorkshire lassies who accompanied the Sheffield Choir in their tour of the world have returned Home with somewhat modified views on the subject of Yorkshire hospitality, and do not appear to altogether appreciate the apparent lack of enthusiasm with which they have been received at Home. "When I got back into Yorkshire," said, a Honley girl, who was . with the choir,

1 "everything seemed to have a depressing effect after the way in which we have 1 been received by the colonials. The peo- | pie in the colonies are cheerful and j bright, but here —ugh! they are wooden j and stolid. In Australia and South Aft rica the settlers take to you straight I away, but here even your intimate ' friends look at you almost with indifference." Were the male colonials nice, and had any of the ladies of the choir been left behind? "Yes, one was married at Durban,_ and remained there. Another accepted a' situation in Johannesburg, and it was rumored in the choir that she had 'seen someone' there. A third had returned Home from South Africa, but was going back." Englishmen living in the colonies, it appears from the conversation, are very much prejudiced against colonial girls. "Four or five of them said to me that they would not like to marry a colonial girl. The colonial girl is not sufficiently do-

mesticated, and is altogether too mannish." One oi the things which appealed considerably to the sympathies of this Yorkshire girl was the way in which English soldiers crowded to the concerts given by the choir whenever they were within reach of a military station. "We could see large patches of red in the audience where the soldiers were seated," he said, "and they seemed to listen to our homeland songs particularly with rapt attention."