WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 174, 22 January 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen.") I TRAFFIC IN GIRLS. UNSPEAKABLE REVELATIONS. | Paris, January 15. After a secret trial lasting nearly a fortnight the 19 persons charged with being implicated in the white slave traffic have all been convicted. Victor Flachon, one of the best known of the many prominent Parisians involved in the scandal, was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment, and his mistress, who led the awful orgies that took place at Flachon's villa, to two years. Another woman who was concerned in the abominable traffic, and who conducted an agency for the sale of girls not out of their teens, received a sentence of two years. Five other prisoners were ordered to be banished, and the mothers who confessed to having sold their girls for immoral purposes received sentences ranging from six months to six years. The evidence was so shocking that even the French papers dare not publieh it. Bankers, manufacturers and diplomats were proved to have regularly bought girls, whom they would afterwards discard for new purposes. The light punishment meted out to Flachon, who was formerly editor of La Lanterne, is believed to have been due to political influence.

REVEALING THEIR AGES Not even for such allurements as a Christmas present of cash and promise of a pension would the young women employed by the Boston Telephone Company reveal their ages (writes a Boston' correspondent). Recently the directors of the company voted the girl switchboard operators a cash present at Christmas, the amount varying according to age. It was announced that this Christmas gift would eventually develop ' j into a pension. One of the young men secretaries was given the tack of tabulating the girls by ages. He began his work among the 150 young women employed in the main office. After a few hours of fruitless questioning he reported that the task was a hopeless one, as not one of the operators would answer his question as to the date of her birth. The Scheme, therefore, has been abandoned for the present.

AN INTERESTING CONTROVERSY. J The controversy as to fitness or otherwise of the house-man to put on the castoff shoes of Mary Ann promises to wage every bit as furiously as the pros and cons of paper-bag cookery did a while ago (s'ays the Sydney Sun). Some householders are firm in their belief that with the arrival of the male house worker the back of the domestic problem has been broken. The lad in the white coat and silver buttons has a good many virtues. I He looks tidy, and gets through his work with despatch, and the list of his breakages doesn't seem to mount higher than that of Mary Ann aforesaid. He carries trays up and downstairs, sweeps and dusts with vigor, and seems, unlike his feminine prototype, to. have no rooted, objection to answering the door. He shows a predilection for keeping the silver clean and washing up in good hot water. These are his good points. But there is another side to his character. He has been known to incline to the acquisition of wealth not honestly gained, and his. habit of going upon the spree during the afternoon off, and neglecting to arrive home in time to resume his next morning's duties, has brought some degree of disgrace upon the fraternity. One Sydney boardinghouse proprietress sums up the male help as a fraud, and finds him neither neat in the bedrooms, nor capable in the dining-room. Quite another name is, however, given the house-man by another lady. With her the house-stewards have been an unqualified success, and nothing would induce her to go back to a whole female staff. with the usual prejudices against him, and, indeed, at one time had a splendid lot of girls,' some of whom were with her for ten years. When she moved to the North Shore, however, they became discontented. She paid good wages always, but could not keep things going smoothly, and finally, at the suggestion of a friend, who had to do with the supply of stewards to ships, she cleared out her womenfolk, with one exception, and took on the house-stewards. They worked well. But some of them drank, and things didn't improve much. At last, however, she hit upon the expedient of choosing young fellows from 19 to 22, and then she was able to get together a fine team. The boys came along freshly trained and eager for shore life again, and the mistress set herself to make the home a happy one for them. "Of course," she says, "you have to pay a man more than the average maid, and I never give less than £1 a week, but then I find that I get £1 worth of work. . . . No, in a boardinghouse, I think that the houseboy has not only come to stay, but that in a very little while most house mistresses will have cast out their women in favor of the house-steward. I give both , men and women the same wage, £1 a week, and what they make in tips is j nothing to me, but I find the men are best worth the money. Women are going into a good many professions that used to be the exclusive property of men," she concluded, laughing, "but the men are going to pay some of it back by taking on the domestic labor and beating woman at her own particular specialty."

A CUP OF TEA. The Lancet published last month a concluding article upon tea in which the results are summed up under this title of an investigation continued since the first report was published in January last. Tin 1 suggestion that an infusion of good tea consists chiefly of caffeine tannate is confirmed. Jt is pointed out that when caffeine and tannin are in a state of combination—neither, that is, being in the free state—the harmful astringent qualities of the tannin disappear and the bitter taste of free caffeine is not perceptible. The teas of high quality yield as a rule a simple infusion of caffeine tannate, not of caffeine or of tannin. Such teas must be regarded as the most desirable from a pysiological point of view. It is interesting to find that, as a rule, the expert taster picks out these teas as teas of high quality. Good teas, in short, according to this enquiry, are those which on a five minutes' infusion yield only caffeine in the form of caffeine tannate to the infusion; and bad or indifferent teas are those which yield on infusion a tea containing, in addition to caffeine tannate, either caffeine or tannin, but especially tannin, in excess. A good tea may be made a bad tea, but a bad tea cannot be made a good tea except perhaps by very skilful blending. Excessive infusion will spoil a good tea, but even a short infusion of a bad tea may be as objectionable as an excessive infusion of a good tea. On physiological grounds, there, the con- j sumer of high quality teas runs less risk of digestive disturbance provided the tea is made properly. The report contains a short account of some new methods of analysis which have thrown further light upon the chemistry of a cup of tea in the direction indicated.

BREACH OF PROMISE SUITS

It would seem, from the standpoint of the plaintiff, that the best place wherein to institute a suit for a breach of promise is England. Other countries •seem to regard with suspicion attempts to recover pecuniary damages by reason of the loss of a prospective mate, and unless the plaintiff has a very strong case indeed it is never worth while in most countries to take the case into court. In France breach of promise suits are rare, for the reason that the law requires the plaintiff to prove that she has suffered pecuniary loss. This is, of course, no easy thing for the aggrieved lady to accomplish, especiallyin a country wherein a girl with no dot has a poor chance of finding a husband.

The Netherlands and Austria have adopted the French system, and the result in both countries has been about the same. Breach of promise actions are rare in those lands, the injured damselsor relatives usually taking the law into their own hands. Sober Germany, as might be expected, has taken a practical method for solving this problem. When a German couple become engaged they must undergo the ceremony of a public betrothal. In the local town hall the two declare their willingness to marry, signing such a collection of documents that no loophole of escape is left. Should either party to the contract wish to withdraw therefrom, another journey must be made to the town hall, and another string of documents signed, witnessed and sealed. Then the authorities gravely- determine the question of damages, should any compensation be claimed. In this relation it may be pointed out that the man may, and often does, claim a solatium for his wounded affections. The usual award is one-fifth of the marriage dowry. It is easy to understand from all this how unwilling the young people of Germany • are to break their betrothal vows. ! The Italian law demands that the person suing for breach of promise shall produce a written promise to marry; otherwise the suit cannot proceed. This difficulty is almost insurmountable, and I Italian judges are seldom troubled to abjudicate between one-time lovers. To bring an action of breach of promise against a reigning monarch is an {achievement credited to an EnglishI woman. This lady sued the Sultan of I Jahore, and as there existed some doubt ■ J whether the dusky Lothario was actually ' > a reigning monarch, the case was allowed I to go to Court; but the Judge quickly disposed of the action by his ruling that . it was inadmissible, for the reason reI ferred to.