WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 291, 5 June 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen"). DRUG-DRINKING HABIT. A London exchange states that the drug-drinking habit is, according to medical opinion, becoming a serious national danger. The worst devotees are women. A woman suffers from neuralgia or some other nervous complaint, and goes to the doctor. The medicine that is prescribed gives her the much-needed relief. By some means or other she discovers what the drug was that has been given < her, and then the fatal habit begins. Slowly 'but surely the drug takes its hold on her, until at last she finds it impos sible to shake it off. Highly-strung people, such as artists, writers, actor* and actresses, claim more victims than any other class. Just over a year ago. for example, a once well-known artist was found dying on the Thames Embank-' ment. He had contracted the morphia habit, lost his once brilliant powers, and gradually drifted down through morphia to become a hopeless alcohol maniac. Many actresses require stimulants in order to bring them through a nervetrying ordeal on the stage. More than one brilliant career behind the. footlights has been cut short l>y the fatal morphia habit. One actress created such a favorable impression on her first appearance as to "be looked upon as a second Ellen Terry. During a nervous crisis she took a dose of morphia, and, delighted with the immediate benefit of the drug, | she had recourse to it at other times, j Before anyone found out what was hapj pening she had become a confirmed i morpho-maniac. Instead of the 'brilliant future predicted for her she gradually grew worse and worse, managers had to refuse her engagements, and sho J finally took to drinking eavvde-'Cologne, •methylated spirits, and anything else I which would give her a temporary rej lease from the torture of a racked body and more cracked mind. Recently death laid a merciful hand upon this promising actress. Arsenic eating is indulged in in England to an extent which is hardly realised. !By the society lady of the West End and the factory girls of the East End the drug is swallowed in amazing qualities.

WHAT MEN AND WOMEN ARE SAYING ABOUT EACH OTHER

MEN ABOUT WOMEN.

I The Sex Slave.—Most women remain liHle girls all their lives. " They pass I from one state of servitude to another.-* Guy Lopes, in La Nouvelle Revue (Paris). The Inevitable Smile.—There has been steadily growing upon the countenance iof present-day woman a species of , gi lvanised smile, until, as a certain adJ vi rtisement used to put it, "it won't . come off." That smile is part of her stock-in-trade. It does duty for conversation. It is considered as essential to her personal appearance as a transformation or a good face cream, —World. The Dangerous Age.—There is no woman so dangerous to a young man's happiness as the middle-aged woman. Her youthful admirer is first taught the lesson of subjugation, then conjugation, and last but not least—adoration. To be a goddess of inspired fancy requires all the art and tact of a finished performer, an accomplished player on a man's little j weakness and sympathy.—Eric Jackson, I in U.S.A. Newsletter.

WOMEN ABOUT MEN,

Why Tobacco Came.—God made man first; then He made woman; then Hs felt so sorry for man that He made tobacco—Maud Rivers.

Man's Mistake.—Men expect a woman to be pleased with empty insincerities which are an insult to her intellect.— Sarah Grand. •

Women to Order.—Englishmen do not like originality in a woman; they prefer their female belongings to be turned out all on the same pattern, like puddings out of a mould—Lady Grove. 'What Every (Bachelor Knows.—'Bachelors know better than anyone how to make themselves— and everybody else comfortable. I would always depend on a man's judgment, from the choice of furniture to the selection of a hat.— Beryl Tucker. Beauty versus Brains. Masculine beauty is not a question of brains or character, or self-adornment. The wisest men are generally—well, not handsome. A meeting of a learned society is never a beauty show.—-Maude Porter.

HOUSECRAFT FOR GIRLS At a recent teachers' conference at Hull, England, TVliss S. Dix read a paper on "Training for Girls in Domestic Subjects" at the sectional meeting in the Royal Institution. The foolish attitude towards so-called "menial" employment, she said; found its reflection oc- | casionally among girls in elementary schools unwilling to take their proper share in the details of a cookery course—girls whoso mothers assert, "My daughter does not wash dishes at home, and I object to her doing so at the cookery class. She held that the daughter remaining at home to provide for the comfort of the wage-earner deserved as important a niche in the world as that filled by her salaried brother or sister. If every wage-earner in the family contributed a sum every week to the mother, wife, daughter or sister who "stays at home" as her wages for personal service rendered to them, domestic occupations would be quickly lifted to a higher level. _At the age of 13 school life for girls might well be remodelled, one-half being devoted to cookery, laundry and housecraft, and the remaining 'half em- I ployed in needlework (especially the I making and mending of garments, housetold linen, and napery), a theoretical course in home and baby lessons, the elements of public health, household calculations and accounts, singing, physical exercises, and reading good literature. |

DEPRIVED OF HIS DAUGHTER Mrs. Deforrest, one of the leaders of the suffrage moment in New York, has been figuring in the Divorce Court.' Her husband complained that their married life was happy until the suffragist business intruded itself and left him outside the pale of domestic bliss. Soon after the birth of the babv he says his wife had told him that lie had fulfilled his office as a biological factor and she wanted to give him ,£IOOO to relinquish his proprietory interest in the child. The husband did not mind being called a biological factor, but he refused to dispose of his interest in the baby. Justice Putnam decided that the wife was entitled to the temporary custody of the baby girl, and directed the mother to send her husband a weekly letter recording the child's movements. Mrs. Deforrest is a daughter of Harriet Stanton Blatch, president of the League of Selfsupporting Women.