THE LADIES’ WORLD

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2392, 6 January 1909, Page 7

THE LADIES’ WORLD

THE 'POWER OF CLOTHES

“Tho .‘.pe-cies of person feminine to whom man : gives tip ihis seat in the train car, is .a subject, of perennial •discussion/’ said the observant woman to the “New York Tribune.” “I can tell you definitely. It is to tho welldressed woman. I have used the tram-car -every day except Sundays land holidays for the last ten years. Seats are offered to me when I have on my good clothes, and I am left to /SjjJjSnd when I have not. Man’s subjection to feminine beauty is a tradition. It isn’t he’s subject to; it’s clothes. Ten years ago I was a good deal younger and better looking than I am. now, but I didn’t get a seat in a tram-car or other small courtesies from men nearly so often. The reason? Why, I have a good deal more money to spend now, and I have acquired a deeper and more thorough acquaintance with the whole subject of .clothes. Therefore ■ I dress much better. If a girl as pretty as a picture in poor, common clothes, camo into the car, and a middle-aged woman elegantly dressed, I would hack the ‘old mi’ to get the seat. ‘Homage to feminine beauty,’ indeed! It’s a homage to feminine clothes men pay.” Which is open for some discussion !

AN INDICTMENT

A lady writer in the “Australasian” expresses the idea that although many country girls aro experts with their needles, to some of them sewing is a. veritable torture. The majority of girls who live on stations, she protests, get. all their, dresses and blouses up from town, finished and ready to put on, and I have known several who didn’t know how to put in a stitch for themselves. To these the paper patterns which arrive neatly folded up within the covers.of favorite magazines, would be like so many Chinese -puzzles—if they ever tronblto open them out." But they don’t to do that. One wonders why they -don’t take pleasure in making their own ‘-‘things” during the long days when they do not go out, since there is nowhere to go (except for •a walk through the paddocks, down to tho woolshed, or along by the willows at the riverside, when afternoon tea is well over and the sun is thinking of going down). They have more time, at least one would imagine so, than town girls, who nearly always can. make frocks and trim hats (if what they say is true). And sewirfg is an accomplishment which nearly always comes in handy. A squatter’s I know, who has been obliged t-o earn her own living in consequence of rabbits and bad seasons, has decided to become a children’s nurse. She has sensibly enough' gone into training for it, and was set up to make some little children’s garments. The various pieces were cut out- for her. She turned them this way and that —they all seemed so tiny and so different. She couldn’t make head or tail of them. “Oh,” she exclaimed, mournfully, “if you wanted me to round up ia- mob of sheep I could do it with the best. But . these little hits of things quite get away from me.”

THE LAUNDRY

-*H'hen our laundry parcels return from the place where they have been “taken and done for,” and when we , subsequently don a collar that feels like a ferro-concrete wall with a topdressing of broken glass, wo women folk wish for the forcible and unlimited vocabulary of our brothers under similar circumstances, and the laundryman comes in for some distinctly . uncomplimentary remarks. One of them, writing to a Home paper, vindicates himself thusly : —“The responsibility for much of the trouble which is charged to the unfortunate luundryman lies,'~in the first instance with the public themselves, and, in the second, with the manufacturer, who, in order to meet the current dean and for articles of excellent appearance lat .impossible prices, has been forced, to elevate adulteration and substitution to a fine art. Any laundry manager can unfold many a tale of linen loaded with china clay amonst other substances; silk weighted with metallic salts, etc., to an almost incredible degree, and of the receipt of. hitter complaints of the impoverished appearance of the articles •when returned from the laundry with the filling removed, while the extent to which other material is substituted for wool and linen in particular must bo apparent to anyone -who regularly reads his daily paper. I agree with your correspondent that in some afetses collars, cuffs, and shirt-fronts 'are starched unnecessarily hard, but this iagain 'is only practised by the small, inefficient laundries, or, where articles of this description arc starched hard-with a very high glaze, it is done to please customers of the artisan class who like to wear this sort of .armour on Sundays. The idea that washing in machines is necessarily moro destructive to the articles so treated than the old-fashioncu hand methods, although still very prevalent, is slowly and gradually disappearing, as the public are beginning to appreciate the amount of skill ana care which has bcen"devoted of date years to the design, manufacture, and manipulation of the apparatus •used for this purpose.

RECIPES. Plum Pudding.—‘Half pound finely shred suet, £lb well washedyand dried currants, Jib stoned raisins, four tablespoonfuls of flour, soz or sugar, 3 eggs, Soz finely shred citron peel, half a nutmeg, grated, a spoonful of brandy, and just enough milk to make it all mix- properly. Put it on in boiling water and boil for five or six hours. It is a'll the better for keeping, so old-fashioned housewives boil it for four or five hours, then hang it up in a cool place until wanted. Then . again put it on m boiling water and boil it for two or three hours longer. It can hardly be over-boiled. Ifor the sauce, put ill a pint of thick, sweet cream, a teaspoonful of essence of vanilla, a good tcaspoonful of brandy, and two tabicspoonfuls of castor sugar, bti-r this all over the fire till the sugar is (melted, then add half a good nutgrated. ' „,, ” Chicken Creams. —-Mince lib raw chicken with a blanched shallot, and pound it all together till smooth with half a pint of good bechamel sauce, "'a tiny'pinch: of salt, a dust of coiailino pepper, -and a raw egg, mixing

it all well together. Have ready buttered some little dariole moulds, dust these alternately ’with, -minced truffles and minced tongue, then half fill them with the cream, lay in each a cube of .pate de foie gras truffee, and cover with more cream, smoothing it all over with a hot, wet knife-j place these moulds in a saute pan on a sheet of folded paper with a little boiling winter in the p.au, and poach them for fifteen minutes in tho oven, covering with ,a sheet of buttered paper. Turn out tho moulds and arrange them in a circle with, a rich veloute sauco poured round tlicm.