WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 75, 15 August 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eil«en.") A MOST EXTRAVAGANT WOMAN. ''The most extravagant woman in New York," as American newspapers hare christened Mrs. Julia Watt Lawrence, i* to re-enter into possession of her estate of £8,000,000. Full enjoyment of her great wealth has been withheld from her for several years owing to litigation instituted by her children, who convinced the Connecticut Courts that their mother was in danger of wasting her estate. By an amicable family arrangement the trustee the Court appointed is to be discharged, and Mrs. Lawrence is freed from legal trammels. She has for years been conspicuous in New York society. She has declared that " £4O a day is not too much pocket money for one with my income." "An income is like a reputation," she says; "one must live up to it." Mrs. Lawrence was th« favorite niece and chief heiress of the late Miss Mary Pinckney, who left a fortune estimated at £10,000,000, largely invested in property in Harlem, the New York suburb. Laughing in defiance of her avowed fifty years, and still handsome and vivacious, Mrs. Lawernce declares that she is certain she has now set at rest for ever any question of her capacity to control her wealth. "It hag been a long and weary fight," she says, "and when I tell my full 3tory it may prove to be a curious commentary on American justice. I now -expect to settle down in tranquil happiness."

LATEST CARD GAME CRAZE " COONCAN." "Cooncan" has become the rage, states a London paper. .It is the game of the season in clubs and country houses. Auction bridge has teen squeezed into a distant corner near the window, and bridge is almost forgotten. "Cooncan" is played every day in many London clubs. The difficulty is to get a table. Men who knew all the leads at whist, doubled freely at bridge, and pl'ibged with prude.nce at "auction," now sit absorbed by the fascinating little problems of "cooncan." • The Bath Club (which, with the Portland Club, standardised the rules of auc- ' tion bridge) has formulated a set of rules. For the present there are local I variations of rules pertaining to nearly ! all the clubs and houses in which the I game is played.

The Bath Club has decided that the game may be played by any number of players not exceeding five. There are no partners. Eaclj hand is a complete game, so that a player can "cut in" whenever there is room for liirn and drop out whenever he pleases. Only one player can win. The game is played with two packs of ordinary cards and two jokers. All are shuffled together. Ten cards are dealt out to each player, and another turned up. to form the nucleus of a "rubbish heap." As his turn comes each player takes up a card, which may either be the top card of the "rubbish heap" or the undisclosed top card of the pack, and in return for it places another, face upwards, on the top of the heap. ... His object then is to get rid of all his cards before anybody else. He can l?,y down, face upwards, either three or more cards of a value, or a sequence of three or more cards of the same suit. He plays them when he pleases; if he prefers', he may hold them up for a larger coup or to prevent opening up the field for other players. The next player does exactly the same —with this addition: he may add a single card, or more, to anybody's disclosed sequences or sets of a value. He may even shift the joker to the other end of a sequence if that suits him, but fhe joker can only be shifted once. And so the game goes on until one player has no more cards in his hands, and he is the winner.

Women are excedingly fond of the game. It has the engaging element of chance, tempered with some judgment, and is devoid of the finer intricacies of bridge. "Cooncan," so called because any "coon can" play it, came to the Old Country at the beginning of the season —from America, it is believed. Old-fashioned card-players, robbed of their rubber of bridge bv tliis devastating new craze, speak of it contemptuously as "a sort of glorified Old Maid."