FOR WOMEN FOLK.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 July 1915, Page 6

FOR WOMEN FOLK.

" BY EILEEN."

EFFECT OF WAR ON SOCIETY. PLEASURE GIVES WAY TO DUTY. Writing in the Glasgow Herald, Mr. W. G. Fitzgerald gives a graphic description of the miracle that war lias worked on smart sooiety ladies. After alluding to the round of anticipated society gatherings before the outbreak of the war, he. says: The crisis was known to be grave. "Wo are in the stress and tumult of a tempest" (the Prime Minister told us), "which is shaking the foundations of the earth," The men disappeared; they put on khaki and took to the cam]). As for the women, led by the Queen tlicy began a canifaign of comforts for navy and army, fo l ' the poor 1:: general, for t'le mothers and labes ot ths war. 'I hey practised "invasion-drill" and gave money to every cause. More than money —they gave themselves as packers and nurses, secretaries and cooks, producing from the camp kettle all manner of dainty foods—"plain, invalid and convalescent." Even dress itself lost iis allurement—surely for the first time in history? It was no longer "How ib I look °' but "llow can I help?" "What can I do':'' Luxury was dead. The Duchess sat at her sewing machine; » millionairess like Lady Strathcona served cups of tea and plates of cake from a motor coffee bar belonging to the Churc.i Army. Great dames offered p.ikt : al houses to the War Office for coiimsion into bespiti'i. Vvi.men of bi.'li and breeding were cleaning dingy windows i:i the Vauxliall Bridge Road, where a clubroom and tuffet was to opened ior soldiers -jn leave from the front—stranggers in London, perhaps; hungry and cold in the small hours of the morning. So smart- society broke up in committees. Town palaces were turned into offices, and whirred with typo-writers and telephones. Devonshire I'ouse became the Red Cross headqnarti rs, Lnnsdowne House a centre for aiding officers' families, and Wimborne House the office of the Queen's Employment Fund. Dorchester House was turned into a convalescent home, so was Viscountess Ridley's in Carlton House Terrace. How ■ strange nurses and surgeons looked 011 that vast staircase of jet-black marble, • so lately ablaze with flowers, echoing with music and the murmur of rank and fashion in some political dinner and reception!

Lady Aberconway's drawing room in Belgrave Square is now a hospital ward, Lady Almeric Paget's a centre for massage and electric treatment. Grosvenor House, in Upper Brook, Street, resounds with the thump of crutches upon stately parquet floors, where her grace of Westminster as chatelaine once joined her Royal guests in the State quadrille. As all the world knows, the Duchess runs a hospital of 200 beds over at Le Touquet near Boulogne. This hospital is established in. the Casino, of which the main ward is still piled with baccarat tables, eloquent testimony to last year's irresponsible levity and craving for excitement. Eaton Hall, too, the Cheshire seat of the Westminsters, is a vast hospital. So is Woburn Abbey, the Duchess of Bedford's place. Even the tennis courts at Woburn and the great riding school, have! been covered with hospital buildings,, a wellappointed cook house, baths, operating rooms, dispensary, library, and quarto s for a large staff of doctors and nurses. Lady Bute has done the same at Mount Stuart, tho Duchess of Hamilton .it. Easton Park, Lady Lowther J tho Speak-, er's wife) at Campsea Ash, Jlrs. Astor at glorious Cliveden, that fair • castle on the Thames, and the Countes. of Carnarvon at Highclere. This last great lady is a stri ing example of the mondaine become :. devotee of mercy. The Countess wr. i one of the best-drcssed women in Hi -one, a consummate musician, and a (ii'moisseur of art, with wonderful jewels and great personal charms. Yet,to-diy Ladv Carnarvon is a hospital matn :i with thirty nurses under her, to say nothing of' resident doctors, radiologic s, and dispensers. Highclere Castle is a marvel of elliricncy and luxury as a private hospital. Sumptuous saloons and 1c ig picture galleries are filled wit,"] beds; now stately portraits by the [Spanish and Italian masters look down upon new admirers—seriously injured, officers whose wounds call for more or less elaborate operations. So the "purm iral service" which Mrs Asquitli lias ah ra\ s urged is now in full request. Tho pursuit of pleasure is voted bad form; "noblesse oblige" is the motto of our aristocracy —to-day more democratic tluvn tho dockers are, less prone to stand on privileges and rights.

THE SIMPLE LIFE, i' The wives of Cabinet Minist ars—Mrs Churchill and Mrs. Lloyd George—liobtiob with the wives of soldiers and sailors; the Marchioness of Londnnderrv is interested in female farm-hands: l.a:lv de Trailon! has started cookerv classes, and among her pupils was tie Lady Kosemary Levenson-Gower, wl 10 later on joined her mother, Millicent, JJuchess of Sutherland, to help with hospital Work in Dunkirk. Such is the miracle Which the wand of war lias wrought! Other great ladies gave their steam yachts to tow ambulance bargss along tho waterways of Northern France. Others again oiler sumptuous ca.rs to the lied Cross, and go out themselves as capable chauffers—even over :3heli-toni roads betwenn railhead and the aid-post ■t clearing-hospital hi hind the. figlitin:: lines. The Lady Dorothic Fielding daughter of the Earl of De nbigh, has specially distinguished herse'lf in this way, without undue push or* any presuming upon her social rank,, but wttli quiet obedience to orders ai yd cheerful alacrity in the most laborious: and menial tasks.

For this is tha fine lady's selfless hour. If she cau't go abroad she serves in hospitals here at home, or practices ''invasion drill"; learning how to handle wounded men; to turn the fiirnwr's cart into an ambulance with bougi'is and slings, and make the wayside station an

" Eileen " will be glad to reoeive items of interest and value to women for publication or reference in this column,

hospitable resting-place far severe cases in the ambulance train.

All manner of sport is dead, and crippled soldiers have run a race on Ascot Heath. Ladies have a l'ille range of their own in I'iccadilly, but shot-gun days are over; and next August also the grouse will be left to batten among the sunlit burns of Yorkshire. Even dress falls flat—a fact which cannot be too often insisted on, so unprecedented is it, bo uniiiue a phenomenon in my lady's history. For the shepherds of Dress are scattered, the art itself smitten at the source—at Lyons, where the looms are silent; at Calais, where laces were made; at St. Etienne, that wonderful ribbon-town on the Loire. Lady Dull-Gordon, a famous ambassadress of (he Modes, wi;II known in London -ml N'ew York, is now a nurse at the Trianon Palace Hotel in Paris. This season's debutante —Princess Mary herself is one!—makes her bow in a khaki court, and knows little of the (lottery way. Even in the nursery you will lind war's reflex, for the dolls are nurses, forts replace the clock-work train, and the child's waggon is an ambulance with a stolid orderly hanging on behind to look after cot-case patients!

Even my lady's dog feels the, heavy hand of change. Xo more fur coats for liiiu or jewelled collars; no card-case or gilded basket by the salon lire—but a grave mission as "collector" for this fund or that, with his portrait and weekly balance-sheet' published in the papers.

This, then, is to-day's fiini lady, who has new ideas, new values and standards of life in a day of stricken hearts and shadowed homes. For the Great War —as the Archbishop of Canterbury says —"writes a new chapter in the Hie of every one of us." His Grace believes that when we recall it years hence "we shall find that, with ail its strain, all its tragedy of sorrow, it has been faaJiioned by Gkid into a chapter of good, and that our manhood and womanhood have emerged robustcr and worthier from tho fiery test."