WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 248, 19 April 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). GIRLS REBEL AT NO-CORSET ORDER J '•'What? Without corsets? Why, it's j terrible—unheard of—l wouldn't dream of .such a thing!" indignantly said a plump Erasmus Hall High School senior as she walked home along Flatbush ave- , nue, arm-in-arm with her very best friend. The street was full of schoolgirls, who gathered in excited groups. "And at a co-educational school, too! My word, it would be bad enough if it wasn't—'but with those -oys around! Never!" The boys looked over from across the street and smiled. The girls blushed. Mrs. Prank D. Edgell, the gymnasium instructor, is at the bottom of the whole thing. It was she who issued the order that hereafter corsets would be left hanging by their strings in the closets at home on gymnasium days. '•Corsets* interfere with your training." she said. "You can't move in them, and you can't 'breathe right when you're in the gymnasium. And I don't want any j more of those shirtwaists worn, either," she added. "The next time ypu come you wear middy blouses." j "'The class of girls in the gymnasium gasped. "What's that? No corsets, Mrs. Edgell?" one of them asked. "Did I hear you right?" "Perfectly," said Mrs. Edgell. "And; middy blouses, too." "Why, middy blouses are loose, flapping things. Suppose it's a windy day?" "Middy blouses, I said," responded 'the 1 gymnasium teacher. i ißut the Erasmus girls say they simply won't obey the order —that's all. Last year, when Miss Kate E. Turner, acting principal, forebade puffs and rats, it was j bad enough, but the new edict is too much. The ban on rats and puffs lasted only a week, for the rats soon began to appear again. But Erasmus girls range 'from 16 to 20 years old, and have J i minds of their own, they say. I The trouble is that you must have ( gymnasium credit if you want to graduI ate. The boys get .such credit through I football, baseball and track work, but every girl who is not a cripple must attend the gymnasium, the three lower grades twice a week, the five upper' grades once. And 200 out of the 2400 girls in the school want to graduate next June. The girls are allowed only three minutes to get into the bloomers and shoes and out of them, and they have been, wearing all kinds of shirtwaists. Some of the teachers said that they were tired of the gymnasts running back to their classes with the collars tucKeu in and. shirtwaists half-buttoned at the back. Hence the middy blouse. No corsets and middy blouses, says Mrs. Edgell; perhaps middy blouses, but certainly corsets, say the girls.—New York Tribune. FEMININE FRILLS Little girls are wearing Dutch peasant bonnets of fur and cloth. ; White cloth Empire coats accompany j many of 'these bonnets. j Swansdown is used as an edging for J velvet tunics and those of chiffon. i Changeable red and black material with odd buttons meets with approval for blouses. J Short coats of dark velvet are being i trimmed with wide bands of white fur. Wide waistbelts and deep revers are ■ seen on some frocks. j Moleskin collars are attached to } brightly-colored cloth coats cut longer 1 in front than at the back. White plush is becoming a favorite trimming for costumes of black or garnet velvet. Lace stockings, the fronts composed of filmy black silk lace, specially designed, and showing the cupids. rosebuds, and sometimes a complete picture, are now on sale. Others have lines of narrow black insertion. j A LADY'S SUGGESTION Mr. John D. Rockefeller, junr., has decided to head a group of philanthropists and sociologists in New York City to establish a .bureau of criminal research, one feature of which will be to aid women convicts after their discharge. The idea is based upon plans evolved by Miss Katherine Bement Davis, for eleven years superintendent of the State Re- | formatory for Women at Bedford, New j York. Miss Davis advocates that buildI ings for the women be erected as far as possible from a prison environment. Taking a small group of women prisoners, she would segregate them according to the type—the vicious, the mentally defective, and so on. Trained observers would then make a study of the character, thoughts and habits of each individual. Eventually the women would be paroled. At least £20,000, Miss Davis says, would be required to try the experiment. 'Mr. Rockefeller's attention was first called to Miss Davis' suggestion a few months ago, after a visit to the Bedford Reformatory by the Board of 'City Magistrates. Shortly after this Mr. Rockefeller "announced that he had ended his two years' campaign "white slavery." which cost more thai £20,000,, and ended in many convictions found against trafficking in women. WOMEN PEARL DIVERS It is not generally known that the pearl-divers of Japan are entirely women. ■ They wear a special dress, white underwear, and .have their hair twisted up into a hard knot. Their eyes are protected by glasses to prevent the entrance of water. Tubs are suspended from the waist. When the divers arrive' on the grounds they at once leap into the water and begin to gather oysters at the bottom. The oysters are then dropped into the tabs, and when these vessels are filled the divers are raised to the surface and .jump into the boats. They dive to a depth ranging from 6 to 30 fathoms without any special apparatus, and are aide to retain their breath from one to 'three minutes. Their ages vary from 13 to 40 years, and between 25 and 35 they are at their prime. A RUSSIAN SUFFRAGETTE. Princess Bnriatinsky, the well-known Russian actress, snid recently that to her, a Russian woman, it was incomprehensible that the English people, who had always been in the forefront of the struggle for freedom, refused to make their women citizens in the fullest sense, while in Russia the men were wholly converted to the belief in the great part played by women in the world today.