FOR WOMEN FOLK.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 282, 7 May 1915, Page 6

FOR WOMEN FOLK.

■"BY EILEEN."

" Eileen " will be glad to receive items of interest and value to women for publication or reference in this cdlumn.

AN OPEN LETTER. i llv Mrs. Loo Jfyors. in the Auckland Herald). Dear Women o£ Xew ZcaUlud, —• Across the distance of land and sea, let 1)10 speak to you. Lot me. as a Xew Zealander, tliuiik you for the wonderfully )iiu' ami useful gift of garments sent for the relief of our British and ]!i-:«ian poor. The .ready response, the generosity and the spontaneous symliatliv evidence;! is so splendid. The big-heartcdnes.s of it is just like little .Yew Zealand. You will, 1 know, lie interested to hear s f -nothing of the fate of your kind cargoes, something of the .manner of distributing ti:p much-needed garments. The contents of each of Hie many hundred * of ('uses carried a. mute liiessr.ee of sympathy. and told a tale of the ««!•); rcn' cclf-sv-Tillcc industry of :;;r coi..iiial sistciV, oVeiveai. I felt this when I helped to unpack (1::! fir„t conv.ignir.snt down at Imperial House under Lady Emmott's cflk-ient and benevolent organisation which is connected with the iVir Hefugee. Committee, and undertakes to clothe all reft:?eoa after they have keen duly registered, examined and billeted. • • On their way from the lAldwvch offices to their new home, they are side-traek-ed at Inrperial House, where Lady Emmott —christened "The flood Fairy of the. Clothing Department"—and her helpers outfit them from hat to heel in the best available trousseaus. This calls for vast good judgment and practical discrimination.

\vavi..\" in spite of fiennan piracy. And yet, few people in London relishing their regular and bountiful meals quite .realise v.hat this means. It was brought home to me with forceful poignancy when t had under my own root" Iwo Belgian girls. The younger of the two —a wide-os od, sensitive'child —ate little at table. She often,wept at dinner. "Fanny," I asked, "why don't you eat more'.' Is it not good';" "Dear Madame," she replied, in a mixed sentence of Freuch-KJemishd-ovman. "it is 100 very good, lint it is that 1 cannot eat. of its richness when I think that my poor mamma is not getting a dinner so good." Your big shipments of frown mutton and Xew Xeahtnd cheese are helping to feed thousands. Is it not good and comforting to know this? So let the "good works'' shine on, "heading light in dark place; in I'ttle cr.r.'.nics you dream not of.

A DOMESTIC ENTENTE. ENGLISH AXD FKKXCII BOOMS. line cf the ed'octs of the campaign whith isj taking so many Knglfcsbmou to France will probably uhow itself in tin; Engiish house (states a writer in an English exchange). 1 While proclaiming; our independence we have always been remarkably assimilative of lieu' methods uf living, as is instanced by the old Renaissance drawing-rooms, the c-arpet patterns, the chandeliers, and the French decks. Jiut in spite of our adoption of new customs the English house lias remained, pre-ciiiiciintly English. One reason for this is that we are almost the only race which combines gross overcrowding in our houses with «, seiife of spaciousness. A very small French room will have a spacious—to English eyes often a bare— appearand because it is almost always rather empty, and, moreover, the necessary furniture, such as tallies and chairs, is nearly always of a rather attenuated character.

When I handled so many women's garments and so very few men's, I marvelled much tliat this should lie! For is there not in the delectable colony of Xe-.v Zealand a cheering preponderance of males over females ? Have we not more trousers than petticoats to the. square inch ill o;u\islands'.' Tlien why this disparity'; Why mountains of women's clothing as against little Jiilloc-ks of men's? There. must he reasons. Men's fashions are static; women's fashions, fluid and fluctuating. Women, perforce, discard the garments of yester •■ear. Man. the utilitarian and the unattractive of the species (only as compared to woman!) clings to his covering 0 1 JnniT as it looks decent and as it suits the seasons. Women, some cynic said, change their minds and their garments much oftener than men. Quite so. That is why we have much nicer, smarter minds and much nicer, smarter garments than men, 1 say! And you agree with me, dear women of New Zealand, do you not? Then again, women possessing mere apparel than men. accumulate more. One would think Miat annexim: more they wc-n'd shed more, hut it is not so. i or women, like magpies—stuff away ill cupboards and corners all sorts of eld things—from duchesse laces to bootlaces—believing, like Mrs. Spoopendyke. that "they'll come in handy some day." . . . The Day—"Der Tag"—has come, and the accumulation of odd garments prove a boon and a blessing to the warpoor. Only a few, a very few articles, were unsuitable. These were scrapped for the summer. . . A shivering Belgian woman would not "warm up" to a skirt liounched in ehill'on, together with a transparent blouse with elbow sleeves! Xor could you expect her thanks and blessings to be audible. ; Later. I was privileged to help in a large distribution at Whitcchapel. I say privileged —for that is how I felt going down among the women and children of the far .East End. In those dank, malodorous, rabbit-warrened districts, a description of which calls for a pen dipped in grime and mud. And vet, dirtv, overworked, underfed and badly housed as most of them are, it is astonishing how happy they seem to be! Few faces show the tragedy of a starved-out existence.

Ju England, on the other hand, we have immense armchairs and immense cushions and imuience divans. Tr.e.-e we all things which take up room, and they are iiot the only instances of overcrowding. The English house is always full -of little tables, beginning with the tea-table. lAnd on these many tables there are many tilings—more often War* not the piano comes in for a share o: them, since there is not room enough for them on the tables. The is nearly always a .plethora of photograph"—usually

r.rtistic—and every sort of odds and ends, from the monkey on a cracker to perhaps the blue beads from an EgypJtion mummy. Hut the reason why crowded English rooms yet present an uppearanee of spaciousness is because even when they are not very large they are. rather low —compared, at least, with foreign rooms—and this lowness tends to coiijeal the ell'ect of the overerowd-

Xoxv, while the -English room is theoretically the most comfortable and the most congenial, it is a question whether, in spite of what we incline to think of their bareness, many French rooms have got some points which might well be adopted by us. I a the first place, it is aesthetically much more satisfying to ;:ain richness and beauty from the intrinsic merits of each feature of the room, which produce these elicits, than to filch it from the ell'oet of intense comfort produced. A beautiful tapestrv, for instance, has both richness and austerity, whereas a jumble of miscellaneous but often beautiful objects does Hot allow each item to be, seen. 'Soldiers wiio have been billeted in French houses, and thus obtained an intimate knowledge of them not usually possible, cannot have failed to notice that if the French have one or two good pictures they give up the room to them, and do not detract from their qualities by filling in the wall with a number of others. There is none of the overcrowding of pictures and mirrors and prints and what not that is always oiwiirrinf; on English walls. Further, French walls aru very lunch more often panelled than English walls, and this admits of great austerity without bareness. In the utilitarian department we might, practical though we like to be thought, adopt some French customs with great advantage. One is in the provision of proper outside blinds —a great boon (hiring both heat and cold, and one in which the average English house is woefully deficient. Another is the adoption in suitable cases of the French window instead of the kind which, when opened to its v.-ides; r-i----ten t; can never let in more than half the quantity of air which is due to its space. A third thing is the iron shutter which is found in nearly every French grate, and which must have saved many morning 'papers from destruction in their effort to get the fire to burn. All these are things which could be adapted to the English house very easily indeed, and which, with our (lowers and our comfortable chairs, would make the superlative English house a thing of reality rather than one which is often of imagination only.

Most of the East End dwellers are foreigners, many of them being, beyond doubt, better/conditioned than they were before coming to England. How they line up, eager and impatient to get the garments! Half-a-dozen helpers keep order sternly. The head of my committee, a easc-lmrdcncd social* worker —complains to )ne that they are pushing and grasping and behaving badly. . . Good Heavens! I think (but say it not) can you imagine how you would feel within sight of the "Promised Land" of blankets, the tiecessary coat or the much-desired skirt or boots? It's all very well to talk manners, my dear lady, when you have lunched bountifully, and every day enjoy the feel of silken garments warming and caressing your prosperous body . . . . I have often thought that there should be two sets of Ten Commandments; one framed for the poor and one for the rich. Father Yaugham is the man to compile these. He hits home.

How quickly 0110 learns to ilill'ei'rntiatc amoiiff them ami know tlu'ir needs! The i>oor mothers are not the same as the mothers of the poor. One lias but to look at tile children to see at oirce which is the 'hard-working woman who is doing her beat against fearful odds, and which is the shiftless, slatternly parasite who is a poor mother. Poolchildren all; all must he helped, lie they the poor mother's children or the children of the. poor. Tucked in amongst the clothing, I found a little doll, 011 whose live-like body was pinned a card: "To the little, baby who gets the pink dress, with love from a little girl in Dunedin." ]!y a, happy fate, standing next in line was a pale-faced, clean little mother holding by the hand her daughter of three or thereabout (probably over three years of age, for the air of Whitechapel stunts growth). Happily, the little pink dress iitted; but the pleased look of possession was as nothing compared to the beautific smile that over-shed the little girl's face, when I laid tile naked doll in her arms. The mother said it was "the lirst doll she had ever had." I know the little mother of three thinks her ijuite the boautifullcst dolly in Sugar Loaf Lane. I ic-ould multiply instances of the happy destiny of many garments sent by you good people of New Zealand. If you wish to continue your "good works," may I suggest that you send as many baby clothes and children's outlits as you can possibly spare, annex or sew. We, here in London, doing as much as 'possible for Belgian, French, Servian ami British poor (and keepingJack and Tommy warm and dry and cigaretted) we women are looking ahead. That means that the little ones left at home, by brave soldiers and sailors, and the little ones to come, must be nurtured Britain's babies are arriving in single packages in many humble homes. They will need garments, many and warm, this new generation which is just peeping, puppyeyed, into a land so bravely fought for and died for by their fathers Food there is .plenty. Our Admiralty has seen to that. "Britannia rules the

WOMEN ARE IN .GERMAN ARMY. There appear from time to time in the llussian newspapers statements that women volunteers are lighting in the. Herman ranks, anil now tile Warsaw correspondent of the "D.veii'' of Petrod i'.as actually seen these Amazons. Among the wounded at present hem;,; iivaied in tho Orvazdorir hospital. he ay.:, there were seven women who were "ip'.:ured while lighting in Herman uniforms. They are placed together "in a special ward. .imigliig' fn ;n the nature of their ivoiu'ds, they have taken part not only in the ride firing, but in bayonet atlacks. line ef t'ne::i, who had a. serine-; bayonet wound, has since died.

They are line specimens of Teutonic womanhood, and the Russian n>..- ; li'i'oatly udmiro their finely developed muscles, which seem to indicate that 1 hey have be'onged for years to (I'cnaan gymnastic societies. In captivity they behave with the ;i'i>e hamrhty and contemptuous ind:fferer.ee which characterises Prussian olli:crs. One of the nursing sisters brought to them a Russian newspaper, the IVirograd Herald, which is printed in Cevninii. but they indignantly rejected the oner, and said (lay did not believe in anvthir.g whi.h appeared in a Russian paper even when, printed in (h'.'man. They refuse to talk of their homes end families, but .judging by their demcanesthey «<tsi to belong .to the upper or itpp.' r-jiii!d!e class, The German bourgeois has always refuse;! to acknowledge women's claims to political suffrage, on the ground of her lack of intellectual and social achievements. She has evidently made in her mii.d to convince him in the. only' way ' hat he can understand, hv proving her quality on the Held of battle.

Shampooing, JJairrtressing, and Twh: in«. Electrolysis for the permanent, iv moval of superfluous hair. Switch;?; Toupees, etc. Ladies' combines made in to any design. Mrs. BEADLE, Egmon Toilet Parlors, Griffiths' Buildings p.--Carnegie Library.