WOMAN'S WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 December 1918, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD.

SOCIAL NEWS. PERSONAL. Mis 3 Denipsey (Dunedin) is on ;v visit to New Plymouth. • » <■ . / McGinnerty, who is the guest of Miss Leatham, lcavc3 on Monday for her borne in Nelson. • ■- ,• Liis. L. Hansen, who has been visiting her mother ((Mrs. G. F. Robinson), has .returned to Christchurch. e • « . Mrs. McNaughton Christie is the guest of her mother (Mrs. S. Bayley). . Miss Barr. principal of the New Plymouth Girls' High School, is spending her Christmas holidays in Christchurch, Saving left on Wednesday last. •,* * « Mrs. R. Quilliam a the guest of her mother (Mrs.." W Bewley), _ jliss L. Mills, who has ueen on a short fisit to New Plymouth, has returned to Wellington. • • • • .Jiss Stephenson (Havelock North) is >!he guest of Miss Percy-Smith. • • » • Mrs. J. E. Wilson is on a short visit to Auckland. » • • • jliss Farmer (New Plymouth) left for Auckland this week. • • • * Mrs. Matthews, who has been on a ■lhOrt visit to Wellington, has returned. • * • • -ur. and Mrs. Abraham (Khandallah) *ro the guests of Mrs. J. M'Kellar. • • * • jfias Malcolmson, who has been the guest of her aunt (Mrs. Rollo), has returned to Wellington. • * » • The Misses Tayler (Parnell) are tap guests of Mrs. George Neal, Voeeltown. • » • • Mr.' and Mrs. Percival Evans (Petone) Who have been visiting New Plymouth, have left for Rotorua. • » • • The marriage of Captain Eric Spencer Bayley (of the Dental Corps, Trentham) to Mrs. Napier McLean (widow of the late Dr. Napier McLean) took place last Monday at Wellington.

SPIRIT OF THE WOMEN. WHAT NEW, ZEALAND PRESSMEN SAW. Nothing impressed us mere during our tour than the spirit of the women of Great Britain. It was wonderful. In New Zealand, the war effort oi women is necessarily confined chiefly to knitting and sewing for the absent soldier boys, to the preparation and dispatch of parcels of comforts, to the collection of funds, and to the filling of the places in clerical employment vacated by men who are called up on active service. The women ot the United Kingdom do all these things and many others besides. There is scarcely a department of manual labor in which they are not actively engaged in order to release men for the front. Thev are under shell fire in the war zone in .thousands, not only.as nurses tout also as army workers. And in this connection alone they have suffered much,, in casualties and deaths. They are at work in the fields, as agricultural laborers, in the shipyards side by side with mechanics who are scarcely more skilled than they, while the factories that are turning out the shells and other classes of munitions in millions are staffed very largely by untiring women workers. We saw these thinga and marvelled. We also marvelled when we saw women working as lumpers in the discharge of ships, saw them busily en gaged as railway porters, and admired them with admirable skill acting as chauffeurs and tram drivers, and again, in the late hours of the night, hanging on to the tail end of a motor T>us and patiently and indefatigably discharging the trying duties of' conductors. Britain in her hour of trial W6tud have been in much sorer straits if it had not been for the achievements of her glorious womanhood. fX)OKING AFTER OUR BOYb. /he women of Net. Zealand cannot sufficiently know and perhaps will never realise what they owe to the women of Britain for the care and atcntion bestowed on our soldier sons so far away from home. We have been in hostels and huts and canteens where the workers were leisured British women, who were giving their time ungrudgingly and doing menial work cheerfully jn the service of New Zealand boys. "They arc such nice boys, and so brave, and we feel that we cannot do enough for them.'* The speaker was a charming lady in a New Zealand hut, who had just prepared a tea tray for a party of five young New Zealanders, and who was laying out the table for them as if they were honored guests in her home. That woman had received news only a day or two previously that her only son had been killed at the front. She was not uselessly nursing her grief in secret. She realised that there were mothers in distant New Zealand whose hearts were throbbing with concern for their dear ones abroad, her own troubles had quickened her sympathy for them, and she was doing what she could to mother these boys of ours and make their few days away from the battlefield more happy The episode we relate is typical of many We saw. We were at Lady lan Hamilton's London residence on a certain memorable Thursday afternoon, and found it filled with merry-faced young Australian soldiers, who were being entertained at afternoon tea, while charming young ladies attended upon them in the capacity of honorary but certainly delightful waitresses. On the following Thursday we were told, the guests would be New Zealanders, and this was happening from week to week. It was happening also in mauj other homes throughout London. It was happening all the time at Edinburgh, which is & very popular place with New Zealanders an leave. ,*_. OUR BOYS ABBO.AIj;'" aw "

T.i will plea?e the mothers and sister* of Hew Zealand to know, and this is an indisputable fact, that the New Zealand soldicT abroad has maintained an high reputation for behaviour. This catlnot be too widely known and appreciated. ,r So\? cai. always ask ft New Zealand soldier to your home and be assured that he will behave himself as a gentleman,'' said a lady to the writer in England, and we heard the same sort of thing again and again. The English nurses who have hid our wounded under their care speak moat enthusiasticaD? of them, andlß * bit avatar O. mt fc>|». s*»• *»» TO

wives in England, this must not bo set down to tiie superior attractions of the English, Scotch or Irish girl, but to the winning ways and fine behaviour of our soldier boys amongst tti - angor.i. The personal qualities of our boys have won a high name for (.hem and this country throughout Great Britain and one lady expressed her appreciation of them in terms that would appeal most to the pride of New Zealandew when she said: "I would like to see and know something more of the mothers who have trained and sent out such fine- sons." Think of this, mothers of New Zealand, in your time of trial and sacrifice, and be proud of your boys.

'OMEN :; FACTORIES.

~.,e greater j.art of women's war achievement, so far as the Mother Country is concerned, certainly lies in the factories. In the .darker days 01 the war, when Lloyd George was appealing to the workers to accelerate the stream of munitions, it was the women who responded most spontaneously and jngrudgiugly and who put in the longest hours of labor in response to that call. It it! the women who, for the most part, have done their share without strike for higher pay and shorter hours. vV'e' have seen those women at work, and we shall never cease to admire them, because they constitute a great and most sterling part of the aoul of the nation. During our visit to Glasgow, <ve visited a great shell factory, where there were 25UOnvomen employed. We lunched in the men's diningroom, and when lunch had concluded we received an invitation to visit the girls in their dining quarters. We shall !«wer forget that experience. Seated on a small platform, and surrounded ay a couple of thousand bright-eyed, merry-faced, sonsy Scottish lassies, we were called on for speeches that were listened to with close attention and the keenest interest. One of the speakers suggested that the giris should come to the colonies after the war and husbands would I>e found for them. They laughed merrily. Then their manager, in a telling little address, touched their hearts with the statement: "There is something better than that, girls. 'Keep the shells going till your own boys come back victorious, and marry them." How those fine girls' cheered. The roof fairly trembled. And when the speeches had ended, they gave us three hearty British cheer's, probably the only hearty ones we heard in Britain, and we began to realise something of the spirit of Scotland that sent one man of every seven of her population to the war—the record of a race of soldiers and heroes. We walked through those vast works, and watched that army of pretty wholesome young women producing their piles of shells and we felt that Britain had reason to be proud of her womanhood.

THE W.A.A.C'B. Apart from tlio Bed Cross jins the ordinary hospital nurses, there <-. re several thoroughly organised women's branches of the service, such as the V.A.D.'s (Voluntary Aid Department), the WB.N.'s (Women Naval Worker.'), and the W.A.A.C.'s. This is g. very fine organisation indeed that has passed nearly 50,000 women through its haads and had nearly that number still in service in August. At that time, there was room and work for an additional 50,000, but recruits were becoming difficult to obtain owing to the great call upon female effort. Many of the trained W.A.A,C.'s are serving behind the lines with the soldiers in France and are doing most excellent work. We were privileged to visit the training camp, which is run on strict military iir.es. with women officers who hold rank equal to the various grades in the army, the highest in this camp being equivalent to that ot a colonel. The girk are trained as cooks, waitresses, pantry-maids, clerks, etc., the pay being £26 a yeai for household workers and from 28a Cd a week to 42s 6d for typists. Thus it will be seen that girls I who enlist make some pecuniary sacri- [ fice, as tue pay for most war workers is considerably higher. They wear a serviceable military uniform" with breeches, are regularly and thoroughly drilled in companies, and salute their officers with military precision, though they do not salute nor are they saluted by " the male officers. They wear badges of rank, but instead of the customary stripes or stars, their rank is indicated by roses. We were entertained at lunch by the staff, who were capital hostesses, the presiding officer being a bright and charming young lady who holds a rank equal to that of colonel. This was only one of many directions in which the women of Great Britain are not only relieving men for the front, but are providing the sinr.vs of war, and in the case of the W.A.A.C.'s are actively assisting them behind the lines, indifferent to the dangers ' from shell fire to which they are frequently exposed, The spirit of the women of Britain is magnificent, whether in the sphere of war. achievement or in the exemplary patience and self-denial displayed under the privations indispensable to severe food restrictions, and is a spirit worthy of the highest traditions of the race that cannot be shaken or broken.

* HINTS. Mfilce your own orange and lemon flavoring for cakes. Well wash the peel, let it dry in the oven very slowly until crisp, then grate finely. If put into a tin it will fceep indefinitely, and give a delicious flavor. If you havn ; t a baking tin, you can still bake small cakes. Put a piece of stout greased paper on the oven shelf, and put the cakes on that. A little ginger is a great improvement to a cake that has potato or potato flour in it, as it takes off the rather Rat flavor that the potato is apt to give. The smaller the cake you are baking, the quicker should be the oven. Chopped or ground nuts can be added to any cake mixtures, and increase the food value. It" you art putting on fresh coin while a cake is hi the oven, put it on the side of the fire •arthest away from the oven. Do not Sam the door after a cake lias begun to rise. The rush of cold air is very liktfiy to send it down again, and a heavy cake may he the result If you want to use fewer tggs than are given in an) receipe, add enough milk to make up the same quantity of liquid that there would have been if the full number of eggs had been used. Instead of Almond Icing (by request) "Wo love the almond icing on Christmas cakes, but when making mine last year I felt I couldn't afford almonds, so experiraentedjind evolved the following substitute, which was really a great sucosss:—l. took a quarter of pound of fine, white breadcrumbs, a quarter of a pound of icing sugar, one small teaspoonful of almond flavoring, and enough white of egg to form it into a stiff mixture on the cake, and dried it exactly «e I should *ave done if it had been or_ [dinary almond icing. Then I poured ijhtr iiißft ••* Ai aqr taw? *•"

marked how specially delicious the cake was, I do not think it worth, while to buy almonds, so am intending to economise in the same way this . year."—An English lady. When eggs are dear, try making boiled puddings without them. When mixii'.L', add just a little milk in place of the eggs directed in the recipe, and boil or steam the pudding for a couple of hours longer than the usual time. When making Christmas sweets for which whipped cream is needed, try adding the white oi: an egg to each gill of cream, and whip both together. 'lt makes it go twice as far.