WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 143, 4 November 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen.") THE LIMIT. MAX ELOPES WITH HIS MOTHER-

IX-LAW.

New York, September 18. Ail extraordinary love afl'air which reverses all precedents is reported from Nonvalk, Connecticut, where it has just been learned that Joseph Toriana,. a wealthy Italian, who is 29 years old, eloped last week with his mother-in-law, Mme. Columbia di Muro, who is 78 years old.

The couple returned from their honeymoon to Toriana's beautiful residence at Norwalk to-day, and declared that they eloped because of their fondness for romance. The marriage is unusual not only on account of the disparity of their ages, but also because the youthful bridegroom has an independent fortune, is well established as a shoe -manufacturer, is athletic, good-looking, and very popular, while -his nresent wife and former mother-in-law has no money and is ungallantly described by the New York papers as "short, stout and lacking in the physical charms usually associated even with a second bride."

Toriana married liis present wife's daughter several years ago. She is described as having been singularly beautiful and attractive.

She was leaving the Metropolitan Opera House with her husband in December, 1910, when she. was knocked down by a taxi-cab, and died in a hospital. Mme. di Muro, who lived with her daughter during her married life, took charge of the household after the fatal accident, and then love developed -between herself and her son-in-law, which culminated in the present romance.

GENERAL j After spending 69 years of her life in bed, Mary Doe, a Grimsby spinster, died j the other day at the age of 79. She received a spinal injury when a girl, and was never afterwards seen out of doors. Madame Lebaudy, next to Franlein Krupp, is the richest woman in Europe, ' and is worth over eight millions sterling. She holds her wealth in 'horror, and actually lives under an assumed name to avoid publicity. All the year round she resides in a small flat at Versailles, where her domestic staff consists of one servant, who is aided by her mistress in the performance of her daily duties. She is benevolent to a faart, and gives large sums away anonymously. She has a foible. She is a Legitimist, and spends something like £15,000 a year in supporting the leading Royalist newspapei in Paris.

The militant suffragettes in London are very indignant because sheriff's officers broke into the dwelling of Mr. and Mrs. Pethick Lawrence during their absence in Canada and distrained on theh effects to satisfy the costs of the prosecution in the recent conspiracy proceedings. The W.S. and P. Union issued a manifesto declaring that the action of the sheriff's officers savored of persecution because the Regent Street windows broken by the militants on that occasion were replaced by the insurance companies and the tradesmen concerned had received a splendid advertisement. The union also point out by way of contrast that the promoters of the recent coal strike in London caused infinitely greater damage to the community than the suffragettes yet they were allowed to go unpunished. Miss Prances Barratt the 10-year-old daughter of Mr. W. Barratt, of Northampton, has just achieved an extraordinary distinction at a French school. She was the only English girl at the National School at Mouy, and beat all the the French girls at their own language, winning the first prize for French composition, besides first for geography and arithmetic and second for writing.

The French Courts are to be called on to solve a nice point in French marriage law. A couple presented themselves at the maire of the village to ceiebrate the civil ceremony, but before the register was signed the newly-wed pair had a serious quarrel. The husband (or husband-presumptive) declares himself still single, while the woman claims him as her own. It is said to be quite a unique dispute. The promoters of the Women's Cooperative Farm have secured a suitable farm of 2-23 acres near Heathfield, in Sussex. It is a woman's scheme pure and simple. The idea was first thought of by a woman; all the organising has been done by women, and it is understood that the larger portion, if not all, of the £IO,OOO capital required has been subscribed by women. The farm itself, will be managed on business-like lines by women, and the employees will 'be women. The promoters are very outspoken in the reasons they give for launching out in this scheme. "We feel so strongly," they say, "that emigration is not the solution of the present social difficulties, that we are anxious to start a 'home colony' to prove that there are splendid opportunities at home for making farming in all its branches pay, and for giving congenial occupation on a selfsupporting basis to a large number of women. Why," they conclude, "should women be urged to go abroad and suffer the hardships and isolation which are so often their lot in a new country when this might be so easily avoided?"

The "silent feminine tide" is the name given by the French newspapers to the "steady inflow of women into all fields of labor. During the last five years women have entered into the industrial arena in the ratio of eight women to every man; while in 222 professions women are now actually in the majority. When the women of France awaken and demand the Parliamentary franchise, the agitation, which is at present chiefly carried on by the highly-educated professional women, the women of the bourgeois class being content to leave political matters in the men's hands, the demand will be backed up by a large army of industrial workers. Even the more Conservative press express the opinion that a united woman movement in France would win recognition and gain its ends with but little opposition. According to the London Standard, Strasburg, the stately Alsatian capital, is to have a woman assistant for the police force, whose salary is to come partly from the funds of the local Committee for Public Morals, a private association, and partly from the State Exchequer. The assistant is to have a special office, where she may receive reports on the irregular morals of servant girls and shop assistants, whom she is then to visit in order to convey words of warning, as well as of sympathetic counsel, to the weaker victims of temptation. % the co-operation of the Public Morals' Committee the assistant is also empowered to find suitable employment for these women. Another of her duties will be the interrogation of first offenders, who, by the provisions of a special decree, will not be led before the Police Court, She may also be called upon by the mothers of headstrong girls to report on their doings. But police work in the strict sense of the term is not the greater part of her duties. Provided with a fund of a few hundred pounds, the new assistant is to be something of a Police Court missionary, something of a guardian angel to all the women who come within her ken as being out of harmony with the law. . 1 '' '• •