LADIES1 COLUMN.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 160, 2 March 1871, Page 6

LADIES COLUMN.

A New Hampshire girl toc^a.pinch of snuff the other day anoPJ^ee/ed five consecutive hours, winding up with a lively attack of spasms. — [This cheerful incident suggests a method of rendering girls entertaining to gentlemen of sense. Give 'em snuff. — San Francisco "Newsletter."]

In Herkimer county there never was seen a sweeter young creature than Annabel Green. She was fair- as the lilies, and pure as the snow, and Ichabod Brown was sweet Annabel's beau. Eair Annabel Green thus to Ichabod spoke : " Should you ever prove false, my poor heart would be broke." Then he answered : "I hope to be roasted and ate if my Annabel's love I shall ever forget." But Ichabod Brown proved faithless, and soon poor Annabel Green was deserted and lone ; and she wept and she moaned, and she sobbed and she sighed, till her tender heart broke, and she lay down and died. Then Ichabod Brown was never at ease ; he roamed all the way to the far Southern Seas, and, on going ashore, some savages met him ; they built up a fire, and roasted and ate him.

According to the " New York Nation," the very advanced women of America are striking out some exceedingly bold and startling views on social topics. We learn that the great Mrs. Cady Staunton will now be content with nothing short of the emancipation of the sex from marriage as it is. The arrangement to be substituted for the vulgar old custom is to be " limited matrimony," the contract between, lady and gentleman expiring in three years from the date of entering into it. It may, however, be renewed for tha triennial period by mutual consent. If such a complication as a baby should arise during the interval, the lady, on retiring from her engagement, is to take charge of it, the father paying for its board.

Comical notion that is of some people, wheh they want to get married, hiring a brace or so of parsons to do the job. It seems to me that most folks can get married enough by one, if they've a mind. Certainly there isn't any harm in having a whole flock of ministers to settle your business, only it does look like a waste of labour to read how it took the Reverend Tobias Chowker, of the Rectory of Humdrum, assisted by the Revei*end Ebenezer Wilkins (2nd cousin of the bridegroom's mother-in-law), and the Reverend Jeremiah Johnson, of Picklepumpkin Vicarage, and the Reverend John Smith, of Smithville, to make the two people one. What is the object, if it isn't early vanity 1 The " vexaj^ji^of spirit" comes afterwards. — JomaKßtibingle. •

At the village of Beauvais, France, was lately celebrated a "Woman's Rights" anniversary, dating from the year of grace 1452, when. Charles the Bold and his Burgundian followers were defeated in besieging the town. The women had assisted the male defenders, and, the latter becoming beautifully less, the fair sex armed themselves. A shout is heard, a Burgundian has planted a flag on the rampart, but almost at the same moment is raised a cry of terror. The soldier who planted the flag rolls down on his comrades, head cleft in two. And by whom? By the prettiest giil of the town — Jeanne Lame, who holds the enemy's flag in one hand, the hatchet that effected the happiest despatch of the foe in the other. Jeanne follows up the blow, re-animates the defenders, who charge the Duke and force him to raise the siege. The " Maid " received the name of Jeanne " Hatchet " — Jenny of the hatchet — and, to keep her memory green, Louis XI. granted a patent, that every year the young girls of the town should carry the flag in procession, and after mass to indulge a little in high jinking.

Mr. Richard Davy communicates to us (" British Medical Journal ") some useful obseivations which have for their object the relief of a very numerous and useful class of domestic servants from a painfu} and preventible affection now -argel/mcurred in the course of their daily work. He writes: 'During the past year twenty-one cases of this affection have been registered as in-patients at the Westminster Hospital (one man and twenty girls), demonstrating that some mechanical improvements are needed in the common scrubber's necessaries. I maintain that it is unnecessary and quite a cruel custom that servants should subject their knees to the cold pavement or damp floor, and their burs® to continued pressure, to ensure a clean door-step, a bright hearth, a polished floor. Elunkeys, who, of course, have got too much self-pride to knuckle down and clean their halls, use the American Squeegg brush, or a long-handled mop ; the women in Holland clean their steps with an appliance combining the brush and wiper ; the Parisian gartjon waxes his floor with a foot :brush, <fee. Let, therefore, our poor English girls be supplied with brushes and wipers that can be used in the erect posture. Then our housemaids will be eased of a frequent and painful, if not a dangerous, affection; our hospitals will be proofed with more empty beds ; and emplflp£ will be spared the inconvenient^?: sending their broken-kneed drudges into the wardVof the nearest charitable institution."