LADIES' COLUMN.

Waikato Argus, Volume V, Issue 321, 30 July 1898, Page 2 (Supplement)

LADIES' COLUMN.

THE WASTEFUL WOMAN Buys articles because they are cheap, and will come in some time. Leaves a silk umbrella in a case, thereby causing it to split in the folds. Leaves pieces of cake and bread to dry and grow mouldy. CJses the face of flat irons to crack nuts on. Leaves pails and washtubs to dry and fall to pieces. Leaves preserves open, forgotten, and left to sour. Leaves soap in dishpans to dissolve and waste. HOUSEHOLD HINTS. Never strain the ha'r when arranging it. Blondes should not wear orange or bright yellow. Jet embroidery is now used to ornament the backs of many good gloves. Amongst the newest of many oddlynamed new colours is " sunset" pink. A small square of chamois leather will make a very sufficient powder putt'. The weight of the clothing should hang, as much as possible, from the shoulders, and as little as can be managed from the waist. Black dinner gowns have, says a Homo paper, for some while been fashionable and, the dancing season being well advanced, a like tendency is noted in ball dresses. Plentiful indulgence in milk, not boiled, but made as hot as it can be swallowed, is oue of the latest euros suggested for thinness. It is said also, to greatly benefit the complexion. If your features incline to be straight and somewhat severe, wear your hair smooth, not fluffy or curly. The latter style is rather more suitable for faces having a less decided contour. For whitening the hands, half a handful of scraped horseradish soaked inhalf a pint of hot milk is recommended. It should be used before washing, the hands being dipped in the preparation and it allowed to dry on them. A Novel Home and Table Decoration. —Gather primrose plants when in bud, wash the roots clean, removing all the soil. Place in specimen glasses large enough to hold the roots, and keep well supplied with water ; they will grow and flower as in the natural state, having a very pretty effect. IN CASE OF ACCIDENT. Three useful things to have in the house as a provision in ca?e of wounds not sufficiently serious to necessitate a doctor are a spool of adhensive plaster, fome iodoform gauze, and a package of carholated absorbeut cotton. Cleanse and dry as nearly as may be the cut surface withja wad of the cotton, using moderate pressure and elevating the part if necessary to check the flow of blood. Do not apply any water. Bring the cut surface together as accurately as psssible and retain them there with as few and as narrow strips of the plaster as will suffice, cutting them a good length. Then cover the wound with a dozen or so thicknesses of the iodoform gauze, which should extend an inch beyond the wound. Over the gauze apply a liberal layer of the absorbent cotton, allowing it to extend beyond the gauze. The cotton may be kept in its place by a bandage, or a part of the leg of a stocking may be drawn over it. Moderate pressure, if evenly distributed, is helpful. The pressure of a string is hurtful. Keep the part moderately elevated and take care that there is no constriction of the limn above the wound. SOME CURIOUS SUPERSTITIONS. Bees will never thrive if their owners happen to be of a quarrelsome disposition ; if they should make their nests in the roof of the house, none of the daughters born beneath it will ever marry. When a humble-bee flies in at the window it denotes the approach of a stranger, the length of whose stay may be judged from the time that bumble-bee remains in the room. To catch a falling leaf ensures twelve months of uninterrupted happiness. It is very lucky to find nine peas iti the pod gathered, and u wish made whilst eating the first strawberry of the season is sure to come true if it remains untold. Good dreams should on no account be related before breakfast. Holly must not be brought into the house before Christmas-time, iud should owners of poultry bring primroses indoors before March, their chickens will never prosper. The man that is born on Christinas Day bears a charmed life, he can neither be hanged nor drowned. Ba>l luck awaits the man who h so rash as to eat the whole of a double ege. To break a iooking-glass, or to rob a wren's nest brings bad luck for seven years, the culprit will be lucky if he escapes a broken leg. An owl flying around a house at night is a sign of death to one of the inmates. If rooks should suddenly leave their rookery, it is a sigu of approaching ruin to cither the owner or the tenant of the ground. Many and various are the superstitions connected with the new moon. It is very unlucky to see it for the first time through glass, or over the left shoulder. Should you see it straight before you, good luck will attend you throughout the month. Three curtseys dropped to the new moon ensure a present, and money turned in the pocket brings wealth. The lirst time that the new moon is seen after Midsummer Day, you must go to a stile, turn your back to it, and repeat these lines : "All hail, new moon, all hail to thee .' I prithee, good moon, reveal to me This night who shall my true love be; Who ho is, and what lie wears, And what he does all mouths aud years." NOTES AI\D GOSSIP. An ingenious Parisian jeweller has invented a quaint gem for his fashionable customers. This is a jewelled tortoise The little live creature—no bigger than a crown piece—is kept prisoner by a slender gold chain, eight or tea inches in length, so that it can ramble over the lady's neck and shoulders. Not being a thing of beauty itself it has had beauty forced upon it, and is compelled to bear a precious jevval on its back. Notwithstanding this the little creature appears to be quite contained and torpidly happy. Two young lady student have been disallowed attendance at lectures for wearing a plait which in the case of the Chinese is called a pigtail. This a writer in the Pall Mall Gazette informs us, has happened at the University of Berlin, the house authorities having rejected the frivolous ones on the ground that they looked so young, and they wore their hair down, and resembled schoolgirls rather than university women So much for the fair girl graduate with the golden hair. She is not serious ; she is not what the Germans call " solide " ; she is like the poets as Plato saw them ; they make me feel uncomfortable," said grim Professor Ernest Grimm the other day, and he said it of the lady students. Of slang in New York a Dailv News' correspondent writes :—The aristocracy of New York is supposed to avoid slang in conversation, but there are certain expressions that arc heard from the best bred, and that can be classed under the heading of slang alone. ' Our push ' for ' our set' is one of these ; and another is the use of the pronoun ' it ' as expressing contempt. When a girl says of a man that he is ' a perfect it,' she means that he lacks those qualities that would make him interesting. If he bores her very much, he gives her ' the willies,' an experience that can also bo communicated by a sudden shock or start. ' Dinky dink ' is slang for the cold shoulder, or cut direct. As an instance of the misuse of words, the adjective ' scandalous' may be cited, as applied

to anything ugly or unbecoming, A gown or a hat is described as scandalous when it is only unbecoming to the wearer. Perhaps the most graphic bit of slang of all is that which sums up a coueeitcd young man as follows : ' He's quite unbearable ; lie does think himself such an awfully warm baby.'