WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 213, 7 March 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

(Conducted by "Eileen") MISS MARIE BAINES. Miss Baines, in a letter in the Otago Witness to the children of New Zealand, says how much happier and brighter are the children of this Dominion than those of the Old Country, the latter having so little time for play, and she goes on to say how she has stood at the street corner and l simply ached to kidnap some of the merry babes that she has seen. She leaves one message with them. They may not understand it now, but will in future years: "Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever. Do noble things, not dream them all day long, and so make life death, and that vast forever one grand sweet song." (Kingsley). By Royal command, Miss Baines, as a reciter and story-teller, par excellence, entertained Prince Eddie on his fourteenth birthday. THE SCANTY SKIRT A number of fashionably-dressed women were having afternoon tea one day recently in a Paris restaurant, when a man seated at a table, a stranger to everybody present, leaned forward and began to address the assemblage. They listened —they were too surprised to do anything else—and presently they be- \ came interested in his Temarks. He apologised for addressing them, but he was doing so in the interests of the starving inhabitants of Roubaix, whence he had just come. And the cause of all the trouble was the scanty skirt. A writer in a London paper thus reported the incident:—

"You know," he said, "that in the prehistoric days, a year ago, when full skirts were in fashion, eight or nine yards went to a woman's skirt. Now, since the fashion has changed and women try to look as much as possible like neatly-folded umbrellas"—several- of us laughed, and the tall mannequin from the Miason X paid for her tea and glided majestically out—"a skirt needs four yards only, even less. One need not be a minister of finance or a professor of mathematics to calculate from this that only half the stuff is needed now that was needed a year ago, and that just half the number of people need be employed to make it. In Roubaix alone there are 20,000 men and women out of work and starving because of your tight skirts, mesdames.

"These narrow skirts which you insist on wearing, mesdames, not because they are graceful or pretty, but because •fashion bids you wear them, are causing unimaginable misery in many countries and in many towns this winter. For it is not only the makers of dress tissues who are suffering. The narrow skirts have done away with—pardon -me—the use of petticoats. You need not be told figures. I could give you statistics, but the plain fact is more than sufficient. There are 90 per cent, of the petticoatmakers out of work all the world over, mesdames. They took to blouse-making at first. The pay was less, but it was something. Now the kinmono blouse has come in. A yard square of material instead of two yards as before, a hole for the head, two seams at the sides for the big sleeves, a hem at the waist, and that's all. The blouse-makers are starving as well. Of the 15,000 looms in Roubaix, mesdames, 8000 are silent now. The manufactories are closing down. There is a cry of famine. There will be rioting before long. Mesdames, I ask you for nothing except a little pity. Do not send money to Roubaix or elsewhere. Think, now that the Christmas season draws so near, of the poor women and he children who are starving. Do not Je slaves to fashion. Give fashion your orders. If you all wear full skirts again, full skirts will once again be beautiful. And pardon me, mesdames, for talking seriously when you would have professed to listen to the music." He paid for his tea and left the hotel. The band struck up a waltz from "The Dollar Princess." But the great hall of the hotel emptied earlier than usual. I wonder whether any of them went to their dressmakers before they went home to dinner? j

RAFFLBS FOR HUSBANDS ; GOOD AND BAD PRIZES. A lottery has just been organised for its women readers by the Odessa Courier, the prize being a young and handsome member of the staff, who has undertaken I to marry the winner, be she young or > old, fair or ugly, rich or poor. Not only, ■ does the enterprising journal agree to pay all wedding expenses, but also promises the couple a sufficient annuity. Similar was the offer made some years

ago by a German newspaper., The prizs, however, by no means came up to the expectation of the winner, who declared that the pursy, bald-headed little man who presented himself for her acceptance bore no resemblance to the portrait of _ the aristoeratic'-looking individual which had appeared in the paper. "Mr. Arnett was born in Virginia om January 12, 1880, making him 25 years °M- Hp was educated in the University of Virginia, and is in business in Kansas City. He has chestnut hair and brown eyes; his height is sft Sin, and his weight ois lOst 101b. He does not use narcotics nor intoxicants, has no bad habits, and is a gentleman in every sense of the word. He has a jovial disposition, and is very popular." Such was the description of a young man who, at an entertainment given at Brooklyn, U.S.A., by the Westport Protective Home Circle, in April, 1905, was offered as first prize in a lottery. When the holder of th» winning number, Miss Katherine Knoche, stepped forward to claim her reward, the spectators present clamored for the marriage to take place there and then. Mr. Arnett was willing. "It's up to her," he said; "whatever she says goes. I'm game." The lady, however, though willing enough to espouse the gentleman—who, indeed, chanced to be an old acquaintance—demurred at such excessive haste, so the couple resolved to defor the ceremony till a later date. In the early forties the proprietor of the leading library at one of the chief Kentish watering-place* announced a grand raffle, the first prize to consist of a young man, who, in addition to good looks, amiable manners, and unexceptionable family connections, was guaranteed to be in possession of property bringing in an annual income of £2OO. Considerable excitement prevailed, especially among spinsters— several of whom came afar to take part in the event. Woeful, then, was the dismay when, on the morn-. ing of the day appointed for the drawing, a couple of constables arrived from London and arrested the much-adver-tised "prize" on a charge of fraud. Not only of himself, but of his sister later, did the proprietor of a Marseilles restaurant dispose in a lottery. To such lady frequenters of his establishment who \ would accept of them did he give tickets bearing numbers with an announcement that on the New Year's Day following a raffle would take place, at which the prize would be himself and his business. During the intervening months a roaring trade was done, and on the day appointed the restaurant was crammed to overflowing by a, crowd, who cheered uproariously on the winner turning up in tfcfl BOgsOM proprietress of a rivayaf^