Woman's World.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 137, 3 November 1914, Page 6

Woman's World.

' MADAME NORDICA'S ESTATE. | 1 j DISPUTE OVER WILL. ROMANCE OF YELLOW PEARL. There will be a "bitter contest over the will of Madame Lilian Nordiea, tlie greatest of American opera singers, says the New York correspondent of the Melbourne Argus. It will be recalled that Madame Nordiea was a pasengor on the Tasman when that steamship was wrecked within a day or two of last Christmas, in the vicinity of Thursday Island. She suffered from shock, and was attacked by pneumonia. For a time she was in the Torres Straits Hospital, but I think she died in Batavia. Her life ended on May 10. She had been making a concert tour around the world. Two wills have been produced here. The first, made in 11)10, left her entire fortune, a few small bequests excepted, to her husband, George W. Young, a New York banker. The second, which appears to have been made in the hospital, after the Tasman was wrecked, gave him almost nothing, but left the property to her three sisters. This will is to be attacked. The witnesses were Sadie. Charlotte McDonald (matron of Torres Straits Hospital) and W. M. Le Bryce (Governor of Thursday Island). In it Madame Nordiea said: "I am not forgetful of my husband, to whom I have advanced over 400,000 dollars in cash, which I estimate as the full share of my estate to which he might be entitled." To E. Romayne Simmons, her acompanist for sixteen years, she left 30.000 dollars. 1 This daughter of a poor farmer in the State of Maine, a shopgirl in Boston! when the quality of her voici was discovered by a teacher who heard her singing behind the counter, had accumulated a fortune of more than 1,000,000 dollars. Ha'f of this was in jewels. There has been published a list of her necklaces of pearls and diamonds, with a valuation amounting to nearly 1,000,000 dollars, but in this there is some exaggeration. She was fond of pearls, and there is a fanciful story about a yellow one, her first purchase, which she acquired while studying in Paris, and living upon the proceeds of three years of concert work. Tin' jeweller who sold it, thfi story goes, told her that it would bring success anil fame, but also tears and domestic, unrest, and that it would always long to be restored to the waters of Java, from which it had been taken, and now it is asserted that this pearl, which was lying near the singer's bed during her last illness, has not been seen since iier death in Batavia. Lilian Norton (this was her name) achieved success and fame, but her life was not always a happy one. Young, the banker, or broker, was her third husband. The first was Fred Gowcr, a young inventor and promoter of electric devices. This union was wrecked by hopeless incompatibility, but formal separation was prevented by Gower's death. He was an amateur balloonist, and lie lost his life while crossing the English Channel. The collapsed balloon was found, but his body was not recovered. It was after she had been applauded on the greatest operatic stages of the world that she married Zoltan Dozhme, the Hungarian tenor. But here again there was dis-J agreement, followed by divorce. Five years ago she became the wife of George W. Young. Here at last, it seemed, was peace. In a lovely home she planned an American Beyrouth, and the endowment of a great school for singers. But Young's brokerage business suffered from misfortune. The gossip of Wall Street said that he was saved only by his wife's ' money. Her second will shows that he j had and used 400,000 dollars of it, and' this will is far from being in accord with the first one, made a short time after thu marriage, which gave him everything. It may be that when she began that tour around the world—a tour which compelled separation for a long time—the great singer's happiness had been impaired.

OFFERS OF HELP ■"The war authorities are being rushed with offers of help from women, both young and old (writes a London correspondent to the Melbourne Argus). A large, percentage of these are girls who are volunteering to go to the front, and most of them assure those, to whom their j requests are made that they are ready and willing to do 'anything.' But such [ applicants, who are inspired with romance, and have no special qualifications, usually meet with severe rebuffs, for the | military authorities, in these days of responsibility and anxiety, are not very sympathetic with the incapable person. Two charming girls I met recently were very sore on this point. They had been fired with a desire to participate in the glory of serving their country, and so they set off to confer with a great man. As their introductions were good enough they had a personal interview; but. alas, it ended in tears as fur as the girls were concerned, and, 1 dare say, with disgust on his part. They told ns on their return that he paid no attention to their loyal sentiments; instead he cut them short with, 'Can you nurse, cook, washup, tvpewrile, or speak French or German?' and as each question was answered in tile negative, he turned away with impatience. But one of the girls was more than usually attractive, and her distress was so evident, and perhaps this was why he relaxed his official manner and asked what her idea of help was. When, however, she explained it was nothing more than writing letters and singing to the sick men, she met with a rather sharp rebuke for her impracticability. As a matter of fact, it is surprising how many useless girls one meets in England, particular in suburban homes, in the Australian equivalent of which some of the daughters would without doubt be wage-earners. Few of them, in comparison with their numbers, have received any specialised training beyond ordinary education, and even manv o! those who have qualified as nurses are not competant to take on surgical wo'/'k. Here the standard of a nurse's diploma or certificate depends on the status of the hospital where she was trained. It is gratifying to learn that the Australian training is regarded by English medical men to bo first-elass, and Australian nurses get consideration. This is owing to the fact that the uniform standard set by the associations in the dillerent Stales is so high and the necessary course is so thorough and comprehensive, I am told, that every Australian nurse in England who can show the certificate of the Royal Victorian Trained Nurses' lA.ssociation (Victoria), or of the Australian Trained Nurses' Association (N.S.W). was accepted without hesitation."

WARLIKE PREPARATIONS Travelling through the country in England oik- is struck everywhere In the warlike preparations necessary

(states a writer in London to the Australasian). All down the picturesque railway to Brighton (as on all others) there are. soldiers guarding the lines. How necessary this is is shown by tho contiuual arrest of Germans found tampering with lines and points. On the railway stations are little groups of soldiers on their way to camp somewhere. At Brighton, as elsewhere, soldiers everywhere, a number of them on the station—lads with the broad accent of Lancashire, saying good-bye to Brighton girls, and promising them tokens from German uniforms. On the pier newlyenlisted lads, with much of their c.-vilian slouch remaining, but only distressed i that they must be in training for six months before being allowed to go to the front. All along the quiet, open < ountry to Selsey one sees soldiers, soldiers; and then at night, from 'Portsmouth and the 'lsle of Wight, the magnificent searchlights, which turn slowly round from side to side, illuminating land and sea for miles and miles. In the morning the grey, -faintly-seenbattle-ships practise steadily for hours, and the boom of their guns becomes one of tho ordinary features of the place. When it gets dark the coastguard on the cliff must be satisfied that passers-by ara ordinary English folk. "Who goes there?" lie enquires of everyone. "Friend." Then, "Advance, friend"; and he gladly enters into a little conversation, for it is lonely and creepy work standing there half hidden in the hedge for most of the night. A little farther on, oil the edge, of a cliff, are silhouetted Hie forms of two Boy Scouts, who will be relieved a few hours later by comrades, j I'rom all the coast one hears of the same conditions, and seaside life goes on just as usual, for tile weather is beautiful, week after week of clear, "hot weather, and hotels and boardingliouses are full. But the war is never forgotten. The landlady of a boardinghouse on the south coast, where are a party of lAustradians, has three sous. Their photographs adorn the niantlepiece in the sittingroom. Two were at the front, and one is in the Navy; but since Sunday the landlady has been in London, for one of her boys has come back wounded and is at the London Hospital, and one is missing, and her niece, whose husband has just enlisted, runs the boardinghouse. l Children and others on the beach "wear 1 their colours"-—iittle Union Jacks, or buttons, in which the Union Jack and the flags of Belgium and France are entwined. Here and there American chil-. dren play war games with the British children, and willingly become French, Belgians, or Russians; but so difiicult is it to find anyone to be Gorman that either Germany is represented by heaps of stones, or else the more good-natured players are. bribed to take this very unpopular part.