Bobbed hair, if persisted in for several generations, will evolve a race of bearded women, according to Mr. Charles Nestle, of New York. Mr. Nestle threw this bombshell at the fashionable woman in an address to the Wholesale Beauty Trade Association, of which he is vice-president. "Bobbed hair to-day, bearded women to-morrow," said Mr. Nestle, according to the Paris "New York Herald." "The great granddaughters of the bobbed beauties of the present will be able to twirl jaunty moustaches and trim their beards a la Van Dyke. Baldness will become as common among them as among men. In every human being there is a chemical laboratory that is constantly manufacturing hair. If the hair is not permitted to grow on the head, it will grow on the face and body. "Savage men, who never cut their hair, have meagre beards. Men of races which have their hair cut regularly at the barber's are hairy-chested and hairy-limbed."
The Brisbane Courier | Wednesday, 18 Jan 1911 | Page 15
Quite the best shampoo for the hair is a wash of yolk of eggs and plenty of hot water. Break two eggs over a cup, pour off the whites into it, and rub the yolks only into the scalp and through the hair, allowing them to drain into a basin that has been filled with warm water.
Do not be afraid of using the water too warm, for that is the way to eliminate all the dust and dirt from it, though, of course, it should not be so but as to hurt the scalp. Finish off with a jug of cold water poured over the head. Be sure to brush the hair every night and arrange it in two plaits.
The demand for cordial drinks at this time of the year, with humidity so high and the schools on vacation, means the housewife will be all the busier if she wishes to be economical and make the cordial herself. Here is a recipe for a very tasty preparation:
50-50 FRUIT CORDIAL
Ingredients:
4½lb. sugar
3 pints boiling water
3 oranges
3 lemons
½oz. citric acid
1oz. tartaric acid
1 packet Epsom salts
Method:
Place sugar, acids, salts in large bowl. Pour boiling water over and stir well. Grate rind of orange and lemons finely, and extract all juice. Add rind and juice to other ingredients, mix well. Bottle when cool. Put some in glass and fill with cold water (iced). It is also good with mineral spring water.
A VISIT to the various places at South Brisbane provided by government as depots for the temporary "accommodation" of the married persons and single women among the immigrants who are so rapidly coming into the colony is certainly calculated to impress upon the mind of the visitor the belief that lazy indeed must the occupants of those depots be should they refuse to embrace the first offer—however disadvantageous it might appear to be—of employment, in order to bid a long farewell to a habitation in comparison with which the most uncomfortable cell in the Brisbane gaol must appear almost an earthly paradise.
Although the subject may be considered by many persons as somewhat old and worn out, we think—especially as during the past few days the weather has indicated that the summer is coming—that a brief description of the character of the "accommodation" referred to above, many not be quite so uninteresting as the repetition of a "twice-told tale" might promise. At all events, leaving the comfort of the immigrants during their sojourn in the "depots" out of the question altogether, we think it very desirable that the public should be made more fully acquainted with the want of precaution exhibited for preventing the appearance or spread of contagious diseases in South Brisbane during the summer months.
There are three wooden sheds—some people are rude enough to call them dilapidated barns—at South Brisbane, for the reception of those immigrants who, on their arrival in Queensland, find themselves unfortunate enough to be married, and for the single girls who, perhaps, wish to be equally unfortunate. The largest of these sheds, the dimensions of which are something like 70 feet by 35 feet, is that adjoining Towns' wharf, and is dedicated to the especial comfort and accommodation of the married people. At present there are no less than 200 men, women, and children, who have lately arrived by the Sunda, existing in it; and to persons possessed of much curiosity and strong olfactory nerves, an inspection of the sort of existence endured by those 200 individuals, would, doubtless, prove very satisfactory, as demonstrating, beyond a doubt, the truth of the proposition that the same space required to afford sleeping room for 20 persons can, by economy, be made to supply the same desideratum for 200. The shed is certainly lofty, and its roof has a high pitch, but the talented architect under whose auspices it was erected, or altered to suit the purpose for which it is now used, evidently quite ignored the necessity for providing ventilation of any description whatever, and the result on a warm night—the thermometer say about 96 deg.—it may be more pleasant to conceive than experience. The water-closets are situated in disagreeable proximity, and the building is intersected in a peculiarly artistic manner with a variety of drains, all of which, of course, contribute their share to the general stench, which by day is awful; and by night—to use the very profane but very emphatic language of an unfortunate Benedict whom we observed seated on the wharf in a most disconsolate manner, watching his wife, his boxes, and his children—there is a "stink in the interior of the building sufficient to poison the d--l." We can readily imagine that after dark, with the doors shut, it might not inappropriately be termed a very neat thing in blackholes. We learned from the same individual that neither himself or his family had removed their clothes for the past three days—the length of time during which they have had the misfortune of being accommodated in the depot, and doubtless there are many others—men, women, and children—in a similar predicament. That the atmosphere of the place polluted as it must be with so much effluvia of a baneful character, is fearfully injurious to the health of sickly women, and very young children cannot be denied, not to speak of the effect it is likely to produce in the constitutions of strong men. The arrangements for cooking and washing are not of the most improved character, and it would be amusing were it not painful to witness the shifts to which some of the unfortunate are put to in order to carry on their culinary and laving operations. There are no divisions or compartments in the building, and at a cursory glance its contents appear to be women, children, and boxes mixed up in the most higgledy piggledy manner possible. Two good-sized chests answer the purpose of eating, drinking, washing, dressing, and sleeping for a family.
An adjacent building divided from that we have just described by a narrow footway, and a very rough paling fence, serves for the accommodation of the single women, who are, perhaps, a little better off than their married neighbours, although equal sufferers as regards the want of ventilation and being overcrowded. They are subjected to the same amount of effluvia, and to other similar disagreeables, but have the advantage of being free from intrusion from others than members of their own sex. There are, however, about a hundred of them crowded into a very small space.
The third building is situated in a yard near to Hope-street, and, perhaps, on the whole may be considered preferable as a place of residence to the other. Its dimensions are somewhat smaller, but if plenty of holes in the roof are calculated to insure ventilation, it is much better ventilated. There are at present only about a dozen person living in it, which number will doubtless be augmented about fifty-fold so soon as the next batch of immigrants arrives.
Some distance further on, at the top of the ridge on which is erected the German Lutheran Chapel, there are a number of tents provided by the government, occupied by some eighty or ninety Germans recently arrived, per Beausite. They have, however, supplemented the number of tents provided for them by the liberality of the government, by the erection of sundry gunyahs, which give a somewhat picturesque effect to the scene. Although more exposed to the weather than the denizens of the "barns," their situation is much to be preferred as being healthier and more comfortable in every way. One thing is very certain, that unless more room is provided for the immigrants, and a proper system of ventilation insisted on, the mortality during the ensuing summer months in South Brisbane alone is likely to increase at a most alarming rate.
The outstanding features of the findings of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into certain charges levelled against the management of the Hospital for the Insane at Goodna are a condemnation of the policy of starvation to which the institution has been subject for many years at the hands of Tory administrators, and a complete exposure of the utter untrustworthiness and unscrupulousness of the methods and morals of the yellow press.
The charges sustained, seven in number, are practically all the outcome of the Tory policy of "keeping a tight rein on the State finances," as the exercise of economies in this direction is usually described by those who defend such a practice. Overcrowding, insufficient bathing and washing accommodation, insufficiency of towels and defective sanitary arrangements—allegations which the report accepts as well-founded—while they do not reflect upon the officials in charge of the hospital, do most clearly and seriously impugh the administrations that have failed to provde the money neccessary to remedy such a state of affairs.
Referring to the overcrowded state of the wards, the Commissioner says: "This, I think, was the main, if not the entire cause of most of the unsatisfactory conditions found to exist." One of the wards, it is pointed out, was built in 1863, and condemned as long ago as 1893, while the attention of the Governments of the day was drawn to this most important state of affairs by both the present and the late superintendent. That the matter was urgent is evidenced by a portion of the report which reads: "The building is 52 years old, is admittedly out of date, nobody defends it, and it was described by witnesses (including the visiting justice and medical visitor) as unfit for human habitation, in which statement I agree."
Such an emphatic declaration has only one meaning. It stands out as an indictment of the Tory administrations of many years past and as a decided verdict of guilty against them also for a gross and inhuman neglect of duty that cannot be condoned in any way whatsoever.
To crowd the mentally unfit into wards utterly beyond their capacity to decently accommodate them—one ward capable of taking 100 patients had 245 in it in August, 1913, and 344 in it in April, 1914—the while smug Treasurers peregrinate through the constituencies talking about the wonderful Tory statemanship that was always able to boast a surplus, may appeal to the Tory mind as a spectacle that has nothing in it about which one need take exception, but the average elector, we imagine will regard the practice differently.
On the other aspect of the findings of the report—that of the wild and irresponsible ravings of a section of the local press—there is little to be said. The charges maid, put in the most sensational dressings, contained, in many instances, their own refutation. Some of them, the report avers, were not supported by any evidence, and others were refuted by evidence to the contrary.
The inquiry, however, should result in much good, not only to the institution about which it was made, but to other State institutions as well. A new Administration is in charge of affairs, an Administration that has humanitarianism as one of its bedrock principles, and whenever conditions exist, similar in any way to those existing at Goodna, the present Government, needless to say, will take early steps to have them remedied, even though such a course of action should result in the favorite Tory charge of extravagance being levelled against it as a consequence.
His Honour Mr Justice Chubb, who has been appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the working and administration of the Goodna Asylum, continued his inspection of the wards yesterday. His Honour completed his inspection of the buildings, and also went over the farm. It is understood that the taking of evidence in connection with the inquiry will probably be commenced in Brisbane to-morrow.
At the Brisbane District Court, on Monday last, before his Honour Judge Paul, a young man named John Delaney pleaded guilty to having, at Woodland, abducted Rosina Jane Skinner, a girl under the age of 18 years. He said he knew he had done wrong, but the girl was ill-treated at her home, and when she went away with him he intended to marry her as soon as he could. He was supporting his aged mother, and he could not afford to get married at the time. Mr. Dickson said the girl was a little over 17 years old, and she left her home willingly. The night before she had had a row with her father. The police gave the accused a good character, and their inquiries bore out his statement. His Honour sentenced the prisoner to 12 months' hard labour, but ordered the sentence to be suspended on his entering into a bond of ÂŁ50 to be of good behaviour.
