WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 218, 3 February 1913, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen.")

A NEW AVOCATION

( liiUillViir-c i- tlu> late-t avocation for uomen. l.nt as yet tSi»>ii> is only one n ...i,tered plier <>f tin' iK-w calling m Iwoiuitni. This is Miss Vera llolme, who rc-i»iH'(t her position as liveried motor car "driver to the W.S.P.I\. in which capacity she lias acted for the last three years, in order to become a taxi-driver. Her. ambition was to drive her car into Palace Yard, Westminster, and this she recently did, having the wife Philip Snowden. M.P., as her '-fare."

WOMEN RAILWAY CLERKS

'•'The male railway clerk is doomed, if lie does not wake up. This is a bioail assertion, I know," says Mary McDonald in the American Railway Clerk, "but. nevertheless, it is a cold, cruel fact, as viewed from the standpoint of all deepthinking, unprejudiced people. Everyone sees and believes it with the exception of the ones most vitally interested —the male railway clerks. I will give my reasons for so believing. The ladies are neater, cleaner, more reliable, and, above all, cheaper. With these advantages. can my brothers flatter themselves to'belicve otherwise? Probably some of you do. hut you will find it in vain, for the ladv clerks have come into the railroad offices to stay, unless the male clerks arouse themselves from their slumbers. There are three less male railway clerks in our office this month than there were last, for the very simple reason that the chief clerk employed five girls to do the work of three male clerks, and saved the'company SO dollars per month."

A SCHOOL OF ORATORY

A school oratory to teach women speakers how to hold their own in suffrage campaigns has just been established in Chicago. With women suffrage established in ton States, the suffragists are preparing to cany on a vigorous campaign in the remaining "unenlightened" 38. and. as Miss Edna Phelps, founder of tSic* school, says, plenty of suffragist speakers will he needed. "We have lots of girls with good ideas, who can't get oil a platform and make a speech because their knees get shaky," Miss Phelps remarked, "so we are going to get plenty of practice privately, and then have men to come in and interrupt the orators with foolish questions. We wish to be ready with quick responses that will turn the laugh against the disturber, and this branch of elocution will receive the utmost attention." ,

Dr. Anna Shaw, president of the Amc-' vioal National Woman Suffrage Association, prophesies that at least six more States will be won over to adult suffrage , in 1913. Xorth and South Dakota, Nevada, Montana and Texas are, in her opinion, ripe for conversion, while in Pennsylvania the Legislative Commission appointed to revise the election laws of the State reported favorably for the inclusion of women. The conservative New England States also come within the possibilities, as women have this last year entered more and more into the 1 political life of the States, and the "anti" element is considerably on the decrease.

j RECORD MATRIMONIAL VENTURES. Fran Thella de Peer (7S. and a widow) probably holds the world's record for ventures in the matrimonial market. At the age of 18 she married Petrus Jacobuc Lubbe, who died, leaving her with one child. Ten months later she took another husband, a widower with three children. A year and five, months afterwards he also died, leaving her with four children. Within five months she married for the third time —another widower—this time with seven children. With him she lived for 11 years, and had seven children, when he also died. After five years' widowhood she married for the fourth time, on this occasion to a widower with eight children. By him she had four children, and after eleven years he, too, died, leaving her with ten children. In two years' time she contracted another marriage with Hendrik Vana Wvk, a widower, who brought five children to swell the family. Another eleven years passed, and he, too, went the way of his five predecessors, his death occurring only recently. Frau de Beer is now the mother and stepmother of 4!) children and the grandmother of 700.

NOTES Mrs. George Orne, who is the nnlv female skipper on tlie Atlantic const, recently distinpruisliod herself. After a collision during a fog with an unknown vessel, she brought her own ship (the Hiram), leaking hadlv, into Boston harbor in safety. This feat needed a good deal of fortitude and courage. For a whole night and day Captain Orne stuck to the wheel, being encouraged in her determination to reach Boston bv the chief mate, her daughter Edith. The Hiram has another claim to fame beyond the one of being captained by a woman—she is said to be the oldest merchantman in active service, having been built in 1819. These noble words uttered by Mrs. Alfred Sedgwick, the novelist, should be inscribed in golden letters in everv public place in the land: "I want to build a gallows for all the fathers who know that they can leave their girls nothing, and yet do not have them trained to earn their own living should the necessity arise."

The heroine of the Servian war—Mdle. Safronia Javnnavitch—was wounded in the knee at the battle of Kumanovo, but. is back in Belgrade. She has recovered from her injuries sufficiently to he able to give a course of practical instruction to the many young girls who have responded to her call for the formation of a woman's corps for a possible war against Austria. "What kind of corsets, madam, do you wear?" was a question that was frequently put to ladies during the recent motor show at Olympia, London. To the uninitiated it appeared to be impertinent and irrelevant, but it was neither 'explained a leading manufacturer). "Ladies may resent it for the moment," be said, "but they get the benefit later 011 if the information sought is given, because it makes all the difference to their comfort whether the height and tilt of the seat of the motor fit them or not."

At » mothers' congress at Chicago a short time ago a resolution was passed denouncing women's corsets as "a crime against maternity." Many of the speakers declared that the wearing of stays is a senseless vanity, and that the practice is responsible for the physical and mental deformity of posterity. The meeting decided to make an' appeal to the "thinkers of the nation" to give an example to the masses by abandoning the use of corsets, and many of those present pledged themselves to a crusade throughout, the country, in the hope of converting "American womanhood" to the evils of the corset.

INTEREST "AWAKENED.

Interest, awakened everywhere in the marvellous cures of cuts, burns and wound- with Dr. Sheldon's Magnetic Liniment. Is Gd and 3s. Obtainable erv where.