WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 188, 7 February 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(CwKhwted fcj "Eiken.") ; FORTY MILLIONS FOR JEWELS j 1 AMERICA'S EXPENDITURE AT CHRISTMAS. America's expenditure on jewels for Christmas gifts last year aggregated forty millions. The secretary of the Jewellers' Board of Trade bade this estimate, which surpasses all previous records. The total purchases of jewels in 1911 is placed at. £ HiO.OOOjOOO, 25 per cent, of which were made during December, presumably practically all for Christmas presents. What was probably the most expensive Christmas present to an American, child last year was a three-storey playhouse, costing 1 £6OOO, given to Master Thornton Howard, the twelve-year-old son of the president of the Commonwealth Steel Company of St. Louis. The building will be constructed of brick on the Howard grounds and furnished with everything that could delight a boy's heart, including a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a bowling alley, a billiardroomj a theatre, and ever other amuse- - | ment for a twelve-year-old boy and his chums that an architect could devise, NOBLES PRETTY WIFE. KING OF CONDUCT OF ROYAL THEATRICALS. H'ow Western notions do not always fit in with Eastern custom is shown in the story of a noble's disgrace at the Court of Siam. The present King of Siam has a strong predilection for amateur theatricals, and had arranged a gala in connection with the Coronation. Rahsanart, a member of his suite, has a very pretty wife, and he objected to her taking part in the performance, even going to the length of sending her home from the theatre dur-, ing a rehearsal This action so incensed the Siamese monarch that he deprived the unfortunate man of his title, sentenced him to one year's imprisonment, and ordered him to receive thirty blows witk a rattan. After this had been carried into effect the wife was compelled to go on attending the rehearsals. The affair caused a very unpleasant impression, not only among the Europeans in 'Siam, but also among the better class of Siamese. It.is stated that the King of Siam proposes to favor the Courts of Europe with a visit next autumn, and that he will grace England with hie presence for some months..

| WOMAN 23 INCHES IN HEIGHT. | There will shortly be seen at the Hippodrome, London, a young woman beside whom General Tom Thumb and other : famous dwarfs were tall. This physio--1 logical wonder is "Lady Little," a French girl, whose real name is Marie Jeanette,> and who, though 18 years of age, is .only 23in in height. The little lady gave an "at home" at the Criterion recently, and in a dainty white silk' gown looked, quite a miniature society beauty. She delighted her visitors with her grace and gooid. humor; 1 and sang three songs in a clear, if thin, ' voice. Born in the South of France in. a small mountain village of the Basses Pyrenees, Marie Jeanette is a puzzle to the medical faculty. At her birth she measured only 5y 2 in in length, and her hand was so small that a postage stamp would completely cover it. After the age of two she added nothing to her height. Her tiny body is perfectly proportioned, while her mental faculties have kept ; | pace with increasing years. Medical ex- . t perts declare her to be a living marvel.

TRAGEDY AFTER A DANCE. SISTERS MURDERED. As they were returning home in high spirits from a dance at 11.30 on Thursday night, December 14, Isabella Stephenson, aged 20, and her sister Jane, aged 18, the daughters of Mr. John Stephenson, farmer, of Butterwick, near Stock-ton-on-Tees, were.met by a farmer's son named Jonas Marshall, aged 22, and shot down. The younger sister died almost immediately, and her sister died the following night. After shooting the girls Marshall reloaded his double-barrelled gun, tied one end of a piece of string to the trigger of the gun and the other end to the bar o$ a gate, and after drinking some carbolic acid from a bottle pointed the gun at his own body, jerked the string, and shot himself dead. I

The elder girl, shot in two places, after kissing her sister as she lay on the road, endeavored to make her way to her home, 500 yds distant, but collapsed and lay unconscious in a ditch for three hours. Her brother, who set out in search of his sisters, discovered her and the bodies of the dead girl and the murderer.

In her depositions Isabella Stephenson said that Marshall jumped from behind a hedge and without speaking fired three shots at them. "My sister," she said, "never spoke.. She just moaned. Marshall wanted to pay his addresses to me some time ago, but I objected."

The girls were accompanied part of the way home by a young man who had left them only a few minutes before Marshall made his appearance. At the inquest on the younger girl and Marshall the jury found that Jane Stephenson was wilfully murdered by Marshall and that the latter met his death by a gunshot wound self-inflicted.

A LOVE MYSTERY Berlin December 20. A taxicab was travelling along the Koeningsdam, Charlottenburg, last night, when a girl was seen to fall out. She died soon afterwards from the effect of a bullet wound in the breast. The driver who had heard shot fired in the cab, did not stop, but went on at high speed to the police station, where He gave information. A man was found lying mortally wounded on the floor of the car. The tragedy is believed to be due to a love affair.

GAMBLING V. MATRIMONY. Vienna, December 21. At his trial for bankruptcy at Cracow, a Polish lawyer, Dr. Steinfeld, admitted that he had lost large sums when playing cards in the bathrooms of hotels during his holidays. He had arranged games there in order to got out of the way of his wife, whom he held he was taking a cold-water cure. Similarly lie used to visit a gambling hell called Monte Carlo at Cracow at five in the morning, his wife thinking he was going for an early morning ride. MME. CURIE PROFESSOR'S WIFE GRANTED JUDICIAL SEPARATION. Paris, December 20. I The divorce case brought by Mme. ' Langevin against Professor Langevin, in which Mme. Curie, the famous woman scientist, who, with her husband, discovered radium, was cited as co-respond-ent, concluded to-day in the Civil Tribunal, when Mme. Langevin vra# granted

a judicial separation, with the custody of the children and a monthly allowance of ; £32. It is understood that Mrae. Langevin has decided to drop the further proceedings against the Professor and Mme. Curie she had instituted before the Correctional Tribunal. The case has aroused the greatest interest in literary and scientific circles in Paris, and no fewer than four duels have been fought in connection with it. MOTHER'S PETITION. SAVING A SON FROM DEATH SENTENCE. As the result of a strongly-worded petition addressed to the Home Secretary by the man's mother, Thomas Mason, 21, of Aston, Birmingham, sentenced to death for the murder of his sweet'fieart, has be§n reprieved. In her petition, the mother wrote: "I am very poor, and have no golden means which would enable my son to 'be defended in the best possible manner. If I had the command of money, I should have obtained the evidence of the highest medical witnesses to show that it was a groat deal more probable that the deceased inflicted the injuries herself. "If the deceased inflicted the wound' herself, nothing is more probable than that she should have felt faint afterwards, and thus left the weapon embedded in her body, whereas had my son slain, in madness or passion, the object 1 of his affections, surely the motives which caused him to deliver the blow would have made' him retain hold of his wearpon, and' not leave it in the victim's' breast.

'<My son does not hunger for life. Most murderers do. My son would like to join the deceased wherever she may be, but it is I and others who ,know him tremble to think of an innocent man suffering the extreme penalty of the law when he is no way guilty. "I am not superstitious, but, to put it mildly it was a remarkable circumstance that all the lights in the court should etxiriguish themselves when the jury returned with their verdict, which I say was a wrong one. After insufferable de- ! lay this unfortunate man was condemned I to death in semi-darkness, a candle being placed on either side of him, and similarly so far as the judge was concerned." ■On Saturday, December S, the mother received ; an official intimation that the sentence had been respited with a view to commutation to penal servitude for life.

SMOKING FOR LADIES. Not without interest to-day (says T.P.'s Weekly), in view of the growing habit among Englishwomen of smoking, is the following extract from an Early Victorian's "Incidents of Travel in Central America":—"l am sorry to say that, generally, the ladies of Central America, not excepting Guatemala, smoke—married ladies puros, or all tobacco, and unmarried cigars, or tobaccd wrapped in paper, pr straw. Every gentleman carries in his pocket a silver case, with a long string of cotton, steel and flint, and one of the offices of gallantry is to strike a light; by doing it wel| he may kindle' a flame in a lady's heart; at all events, to do it bunglmgly wquld be ill-bred. I will not express my sentiments pn. smoking as a custom for the ;Sex. I have recollections of beauteous lips profaned. Nevertheless, even in this I have seen a lady show her prettiness and refinement, barely touching the straw with her lips; as it were kissing it gently and taking it away. When a gentleman asks a lady for a light, she always removes the cigar from her lips." Judging from incidents reproduced by the cinematograph, the cigarette, still plays an important part in flirtations in Southern America, and it is all done so gracefully that one cannot say that the beautiful lips are profaned. With the picture theatre one travels easily nowadays.