WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 149, 18 November 1914, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

THE IMPORTING MANIA. Miss Ida Tarbll has issued an appeal to American women to (lo what they can to help (luring the present crisis. She prints her appeal in the "Woman's Home' Companion," and this is what she has to say by way of indictment"What is the label on which we American women pride ourselves? Do we boast that the silk in our gowns came from Massachusetts, the cloth in our coats from llhode Island, that our hat was designed'in Chicago, and our house furnishings in Grand Rapids? Not we! There is scarcely a woman of us between the Atlantic and the Pacific that iVjos not love the feel of the word 'imported' on her tongue. , What were the frantic, bedraggled, moneyless American women who lied from Europe in early August hugging to their breasts? Paris hats and Belgian laces, French silks and Swiss embroideries, Viennese gowns and German hosiery. Of all the tens of thousands of American women, who crowded Europe when war seized her, there was scarcely one that was not planning to bring home all her income allowed ol finery. "It is so every year. And what sums they leave behind! And, mors impostant, what stimulus to art and ingenuity they l'jave behind, though 't is only by money that we can measure it. What that is, look at their invoices and see. I have examined scores of them which called for from five to thirty thousand dollars in duties.

"Their personal importations are but a bagatelle beside those of merchants, which in many lines run into the tens of millions annually. Eats and bonr:.'.'t3 and feathers and flowers come into this country to the tune least £4,01 X),OOi! a year; jewellery between £8,000,000 and £10,000,000; silks made up and in the piece, nearly £20,000,000; and :<o one might go on through the bewildering assortment of articles which make for our elegance."

IDLE RICH AND THEIR DOGS. Writes a London correspondent. England is. alas! the breeding groiind of the idle rich. It is the home of the wealthy widow with the nine wealthy idi'T sons; it is the abode of the fat, childless woman with the ten over red oi.rs and the seven o\ cr-nourished m.uds Sid. chaufl'ei.rs who look after them. You meet them at Ea.-'tbourne and Bng'\ion. at Tunbridge and Bournemouth. Jn Urighion I have been driven oft' the sea Trent by the proximity of the rich men's dog* and their retinue? of dog-servant.?. The :lo;r servant is generally a your:; lady cf good family and education, tihts attends the little stiing of 500-galnea Peking. t,e n:pht and day. She be-h, i.t'dshes iind feeds them as no workingman's children can afford to be brushed and bedded. Also the rich man's dog owns the sea-front and esplanade the moment he emerges from his motor f'lis. He owns the sky and the band, and the big fat policeman who shoos oil the tramps and the deadbeits that are 'likriy to come near him.

One of the neurot'c phrases of English seaside life is the way that dogs ar<-. piled into thousand-guinea motor-car.; and taken out in the early morning for a drive. There are hordes of extremely rich women who rarely sec their children. Children went out of fashion during the early Victorian period. Hut the dog and the whist-drive shall never pass.

Now that this savage war is upon us, the rich woman is turning fearful eves on her sons. At all costs they must not be exposed.to the red horrors of a European battlefield. It must be said, however, in all fairness to the rich woman's sons, that they are pretty anxious to have a cut at the Kaiser's men. In the recent scrap off Heligoland, a young lieutenant in charge of a British submarine returned to the parent ship to discover that his spare cash, left hanging inside liis pants, on the steel ■wall of his cabin, had been shot to dust by the enemy's shrapnel from the forts. Fact.

"DON'T." r: If you are tall and angular, don't add to height and angularity by wearing clinging satins with perpendicular stripes. If you are short and fat, avoid stiff and much berufFled silk dresses or dresses made of large patterned materials. If your waist is thirty-six, don't add ten inches with frilled belts and hug.! plaid girdles. They are designed for the twenty-inch waist. If your face is long and thin, avoid the long drop earrings. If it is round and fat, let no hoop rings hang from your ears. If your ankles are thick and your feet large, don't call attention to the fact by wearing the "fashionable" light spats. If your neck is of the double-chinned variety, leave the fluffy neck ruffs to your long-necked sister. If you attempt to hide your fortyfive years an debutante dress, you'll only make 'a laughing stock of yourself, whereas forty-five in consistent dress is a charming age. Don't follow fashion blindly—simply because it is the fashion. Remember—Style has no victory unless it spells becomingness,

PRINCESS WHOM WAR PROFOUNDLY AFFECTS. I The Crown Princess of Sweden, formerly Princess Margaret of Connauglit, is the elder sister of Princess "Pat." The attitude of the country over which her husband, Prince Gustavus Adolphus, some day will rule is, of course, of considerable importance in the present conflict, but there seems no reason to doubt that Sweden will preserve her neutrality. As a neutral power, Sweden' supplies Grmany with many foodstuffs; on the other hand, she could, if she choose, admit the British fleet to the Baltic Sea. The Crown Princess, who, in England, used to be known as Princess Meg, is fair and brown-haired, with a round, smiling face and no end of spirit. Her advent to the prim and formal court of Stockholm came like a bombshell. It was, someone said, as though a London sparrow had got loose in a cage of sleepy turtle-doves. The Swedish courtiers could not fathom her at first, but it was not long before she had made staunch friends of them all. Like most English royalties, she had an education at once wide and thorough. She reads, a good deal, and is a linguist and a clever musician. Like the Princess Patricia, she is fond of rare gems and uncut precious stones, and has an extensive and valuable collection of them. She and the Crown Prince, who once was reported engaged to Alice Roosevelt, have four children, two boys and two girls. Among her oldest and most intimate friends, by the way, are two American girls, Nellie Post, Lady Barrymore's daughter, and now Mrs. Montague Eliot, and Miss Claire Moreton Frewen, and this pair have more thanonce travelled over together to Sweden to stay with her royal highness.

A GREAT CHANGE.

J Probably one of the greatest changes that has come over the nation, as far as the women arc concerned, is—not the energy tiiat is shown in making garments) for thu troops—but the sudden loss of interest in fashion (writes a 'London correspondent). The well-dressed woman is still well dressed; but she hardly ever mentions her clothes, or other people's clothes, or what may be, or will be, worn. Further, paint, powder, and false hair arc almost taboo. Just why this is it would be difficult to say; but beauty doctors and chemists, who make a specialty of complexion requisites, report an entire slump in their business. At theatres and in the park nearly all the women are "in their own faces," and their hair is so simply arranged as to suggest that they or their maids arranged the coiffure in a.bout tea or. fifteen minutes. Everything has sudden!) become simple, and one might say saner, in matters of dress and millinery. Anyone wears just what happens to be most becoming, and many noted society women are seen at the various charitable and patriotic meetings in garments that are almost shabby. Many people are in black, of course. In the churches it seems as if two of every three women were in mourning. This is notably the case in the Roman Catholic churches; that, of course, is explained partly by the fact that French and Belgian women wear black far more than any other color. Some of -the leading German ladies are making the strongest agitation against French fashions, swearing that they will never again wear a French dress unless Paris is captured. In the meantime special German fashions .have been started in Berlin, but a Danish lady, who has recently returned from there, says that many German ladies are dubious as to the result of the agitation. This Ipdy says that the new fashion is "awful," and of a piece with the too heavy, clumsy, uderclothing many German women affect. Berlin shoemakers, she says, dare not make more shoes with high French heels, only those with socalled "officers' heels."

COTTON FASHION SHOW. Washington society women are preparing plans for a cotton fashion show, to be modelled after the Paris fashions (writes the New York Sun), The purpose is to encourage the use by American women of American cotton goods. The models of the cotton fashion show will bear the names of society women designers instead of those of Paquin, Worth, and other world-famous modistes. It is the hope of the projectors of the afl'air, which will be held in. Washington, that women of other American cities will hold similar shows. Manufacturers of cotton goods will be invited to send exhibits in order to acquaint»the country with the wide variety of articles .made from the great Southern staple. Mrs. Champ Clark, wife of the Speaker; Miss Genevieve Clark, 'Miss Lucy Burleson, daughter of the Post-master-General ; Mrs. Hoke -Smith, wife of Senator MBke Smith; Jars. John Sharp Williams; 'Mrs. James R. Mann, wife of the minority leader of the House, and other women heartily approve of the cotton fashion show, and have promised to assist it. The tentative plans are to hold the show just before the week of the nation-wide cotton bargain sale, and it will last two days. There is talk of a designers' dinner so wind up the show, at which the society designers will.wear the cotton costumes of their own designs in evening I dress. The principal decorations will be cotton bolts from the South and cotton American flags, portraying the highest use to which cotton can be put. A suggestion that was received with the greatest enthusiasm was that each woman appear in the costume of her own invention. Thus the cotton fashions designed by Washington society women will lie shown on living models. Those interested in the project will organise, and committees -will be appointed.to attend to the arrangements.

LADY ENG ik'E-DEI VERS. When the list of succosaful candidates was published recently in connection with examinations of factory and engine-drivers, the name of Miss Flor* ence Shadbolt appeared. It was the only woman s name in the group (says an Australian paper). It seems that Miss Shadbolt has opened up another calling for enterprising women. She now holds a certificate, allowing her to take a position as boiler attendant, and is in charge of an up-to-date steam laundry at Middle Park. Miss Shadbolt is a progressive woman, who describes licrself as a laundry specialist. She holds the highest award for laundry work offered at the first Australian exhibition of women's work. For some years she has been associated with the Australasian Women's Association, and has been in the van of all progressive and reform movementadvocated by the association. At one time she was president of the South Melbourne branch.

THE BELGIANS IN ENGLAND.' Some hundreds of Belgian refugees have arrived, nearly all people of the poorer class, their few belongings tied up m bundles (reports a London correspondent) Arrangements had been made for this batch to be taken into the country, where homes were in waiting for them. They had to wait an hour for the train to take them to their destination, and during that time ladies, who had come for that.purpose, and members of the National Vigilance Association, saw to their comfort, talked, to them in Flemish or l'rench, and, in many cases, cheered up even the saddest of them One, a young girl, who had come from Louva'j, Bllw , y ° u,, g brother and oW aftlier both shot dead, for no cause whatever, she declared. Another, a youne widow, had lost her husband at Lieee and was without a penny in the world! hhe had a mouth's old baby in her arms and a child of three beside her. An old woman, bent nearly double, had two sons, men of forty, at the front. Her home was burnt over her head. She ofW t? t0 Care what bcci ""e of her. The whole party, on arriving at tho country place for which it was destined, was met by motor cars, lent bv various people in the district. An Australian lady, who speaks French and German, .and who has had a lot of work on the stations in this connection, said fnil „? ne ,T" illg I trttiu was ™ Ifv , rs ; . Man >' of the men had relatives and friends to see them off; but many had not. One of these got out of the carriage, threw his arms round this lady, and gave her a hearty hug a ? 4 » k «s. 'T had to do it,» L explained "You're like my mother, and a sister of mine dying at home, fcnd couldn t come to sco me off."