WOMEN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 297, 8 May 1913, Page 6

WOMEN'S WORLD

AN ACCOMPLISHED PRINCESS KING'S ONLY DAUGHTER. London, April 20. Princess llary, the only daughter of the King and Queen, celebrated her ICtli birthday yesterday. Tile princess, who looks younger than her age, was overloaded with present*. The Queen has had her daughter educated according to old-time ideals. The Princess can mend her brothers' socks, bake dainty thfngs for the tea-table, and occasionally she takes a turn at making cheese and butter at Sandringham. Besides possessing these useful accomplishments, she can swim, ride, drive, dance, cycle" aml play golf and hockey. The Princess has also learnt shorthand and typewriting, and the King sometimes dictates private letters to her. WHAT IS MIDDLE AGE? "What is middle age?" asks a home paper. In the recent sensational case concerning a Gainsborough, a lady, being asked what she meant by middle age, at once replied, "Between 40 and 50." Most of us would be inclined to agree with this definition. But nowadays age has become even as the shifting sands. Who, for instance, would have accepted a woman of 40 as the central figure of a love story a few years ago? Few heroines in modern fiction are under 30. As far as men are concerned, one dare fix no "middle age" for them. When once a man reaches 40 he begins changing* the period at which a man is supposed to be most attractive or most capable until'middle age vanishes completely out of sight. In short, one may almost say it has ceased to exist. Peo--1 pie are just what they can appear or what others will accept. AN EGYPTIAN LOVE LETTER An Egyptian love-letter of the third century before Christ, written on papyrus by a priest to a priestess of the Temple of Amena-Ra, and just discovered on the withered breast of the woman's petrified body in the Golden Gate Park v Museum, is 'the "proof that' affinities existed in Egypt thousands of years ago. The discovery was made by the curator, Dr. George Barron, and his assistants while rewrapping the mummy, which had been roughly treated in a recent move from one case to another. As yet the message has been translated only partially, but Dr. Barron says a free construction of it gives the following meaning: "O Golden Poppy,'long are the days when my eyes behold thee not. My heart is sick with love for thee—love that finds but little solace' here amid my brethren. Carefully guard our secret, lest my life and thy life pay the penalty of our unrighteous love." GENERAL Miss E. G. Kemp, the well-known traveller, lecturing in London recently, on "A Woman's Ride,-Across the Roof of the World" said that a custom in Chinese Turkestan was-that when a marriage was celebrated a bill, of., divorce was written out, ,so -that marriages often lasted only a single day. A petition to adopt, "a child about 45 years old". has been presented to the Chicago Superior Court. The (applicant sets forth that she desired to adopt a woman who has lived with her for'4o years, to make her the legal heiress to a largejestate. , ..-:. v, 0 .r.s. ; ~.,.•■,.. >!■«:..... No' fewer than 50 "sisters of Captain Scott" presented themselves at the memorial iserv,ice. in St. -Paul's Catliedral, *and several of them got-'through by dint of hard lying. A curious point was raised the otherday at Seattle (U.S.A.), where women can serve on mixed juries. Counsel for plaintiff in a compensation suit objected to the presence of a married woman on the same jury as her husband. The Judge said that it was quite a new point, but he ruled that the objection was in i order, and _ that .-a. .husband, . and wife ought no't to serve on the same jury, as I their views would necesasrily be similar, or that the one. might influence the other. ! Princess Mary is engaged at tiie moment in the futile task of "kicking against the pricks," says the Bystander. She desires to be allowed to lead the life of an ordinary girl of her own age, and rather resents the strict watch and ward that is now--kept-over her. '• She has recently begged to go to a boarding school for a year or two,'but this'has been most sternly refused. Small Wonder that "philosophers may sing of the troubles of a king"—and being born in the purple generally. In those American "States that have given women the franchise the service of women oir juries—which seem everywhere to be a corollary of the suffrage—is making a difference to breach of promise ! verdicts. At Seattle recently a plaintiff brought' a suit for £5500- dam-"' ages against a fickle lover}.'who was reputed to be one of the handsomest men in the State of Washington. A jury of wbmen wa3 empanelled to hear the case. A jury of men, it is believed, would have accepted the plaintiff's valuation, 'but the jury of women scrutinised the defendant fairly and squarely, and decided that losing him would be adequately compensated for by the sum of £3OO. Mrs. Verbinsky, a popular Russian author, has hit upon the idea of selling her works as well as writing them. No publisher is able to get commission by putting her novels on sale. She has them brought from the press to her own lodging, where she has constructed" a store room to contain them. The door is kept locked, and the keys hang at her waist. When a purchaser calls he is received as a caller to her personally, and is treated to comments by the author as'she delivers one of her books. One of her favorite remarks is to refer to the keys which she carries as her "keys of happiness." Dr/'Solf, the German Colonial Secretary, has addressed a public appeal to the women of Germany to renounce the iise of feathers from birds of paradise on their; millinery. ' The Colonial Office, he announces, is already doing all in its power to discourage the practice by raising the export duty on birds killed in the German colonies. He hopes that the increase of the duty is only a forerunner of a law which will entirely prohibit the killing of the birds, which are now so much in favor on women's hats. German women, in the meantime, should refuse to buy millinery adorned with the feathers.of the birds.