WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 240, 10 April 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). A CURIOUS PROFESSION TO SAVE PEARLS FROM DYING. A Spanish actress has left the stage to save pearls from dying. Senorita Tortola de Valencia is said to have discovered that she has a special gift of reviving pearls. Ladies confided their necklaces to her, and after touching her skin for a while the pearls assumed a beautiful and unusual lustre. The Czar of Russia is said to have called upon her services to restore the lustre of some magnificent rows of pearls that had helonged to the great Catherine. The Spanish actress learned that so many pearls were losing their lustre that she decided to give up her • career on the stage to save the dying pearls. She is paid handsomely by the ladies who confide the pearls to her, and the gems invariably recover their pristine brilliancy.

.A Parisian jeweller gives the following j explanation:— I "There may be something in the. re- ! port about the special charm of the Spanish actress for reviving the lustre of pearls. It is well known that the brilliancy of pearls is increased by wearing them. It has also been discovered tnat certain persons have the very contrary effect on pearls. Their skin seems to contain certain properties which have the effect of dulling or deadening a pearl, and causing it to lose its brilliancy altogether. Ladies, therefore, who give their pearls to others to wear must 'be perfectly sure that those persons are perfectly healthy. People who have undergone certain treatments or taken certain remedies are unfit to wear pearls next their skin. If, therefore, some persons have a bad effect on pearls, others may likewise have a good effect; and Senorita Tortola de Valencia, perhaps, is one of these. But in general it is absurd to believe that pearls die. There is no such thing as a span of life in | pearls. ' They are, in fact, immortal; I and if at any time their lustre is diminished it can be revived by proper treatment or by being simply worn for a day or two.

"That pearls retain their brilliancy, tad, as it were, their vitality, indefinitely, is proved by the fact that most of the finest and largest Oriental pearls now on the market are obtained from East India and China, where they have been in the possession of native princes or Chinese mandarins. These pearls have been worn by five or six generations, and some are 200 to-300 years old. Their lustre is as bright to-day as ever. In fact, they are preferred to perfectly new

•earls. The pearls now obtained are Wonting smaller and smaller, and the price of small pearls, which some years ago would scarcely have been bought, has gone up prodigiously until they cost almost as much as larger pearls. But whether small pearls or large, the Oriental pearl never loses its beautiful lustre if properly treated. Wearing them next the skin certainly improves them, not perhaps through any magical process, but simply from the natural warmth of the body added to the friction caused by the wear.

WlDo\vjiK S iJKKACH UF JfKUJVUSE.

DAMAGES AWARDED. For breach of promise £2OO damages were awarded at Leicestershire Assizes to Miss Nellie Cotterill, of Gilmorton, who sued James Joseph Phillips, of Bromley Park, Rugeley, Staffordshire. i Mr. Hugo Young, for the plaintiff, said J she was a farmer's daughter, twenty- | seven years old. The defendant was J forty-three, a widower with four childj ren. A Miss Walker had acted as his housekeeper, and after the defendant J and the plaintiff became engaged Miss • Walker went to Canada. On the day | after seeing Miss Walker off the defendJ ant wrote to the plaintiff: for a few weeks. I went to see Gladys Walker off at Liverpool, and when I parted from her I found I cared for her a good deal more than I thought." Counsel added that the plaintiff wrote agreeing to the postponement. The defendant afterwards went to Canada and married Miss Walker without the plaintiff having the remotest idea of what was going on.

The defendant in evidence as to his means said he lost money on his farm last year. Mr. Young: You have come into the box to try to get rid of the girl as possible? Defendant: No; it was not my wish to come here. (Laughter). Mr. Young: Instead of going to Canada, don't you think it would have been a good thing if you had taken both of them to Utah? (Laughter).

UNITED IN DEATH PATHETIC CASES. The funeral took place recently at Charlton, Kent, of Mr. J. King, aged 94 and his wife, Mrs. Eliza King, aged 93,' who had been married seventy years. Mrs. King died on a Monday, and the next day the husband told 'his friends that he had had a dream in which he saw two graves being prepared, one for himself and the other for his wife. The next day he died. The two bodies were buried side by side in one grave. The death has taken place at Pulham, St. Mary, Norfolk, of Mrs. Leftlv, aged 76, one day after the burial of her husband, who was 84. The husband died a week after attending the funeral of his sister-in-law, who was 85.

CHILDREN DIPLOMATISTS *i«liWl London, February 20. A deputation extraordinary leaves London for Paris at Whitsun, and will consist of 1000 London children from the elementary schools of the London County Council, who go to France as guests of the Municipality of Paris to compete in the International Musical Competition. The fortunate scholars must all, of oourse, be singers, and will be called on to sing against similar choirs of little ones from Russia, Italy, many parts of France, Denmark, etc. The- visit is to occupy five days, all the travelling being undertaken by special trains and boats, and after the work of the visit is over the small guests will be taken to various places of note in and around the <*av city. °