Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



77 



LADY COLONELS. 



''Royal .\mazons " is the somewhat misleading 

 title of a paper otherwise headed " Europe's Best 

 Troops Commanded by Women," contributed to the 

 Lady's Realm for July. First in the list are Grand 

 Duchess Olga, eldest daughter of the Tsar, and her sister 

 the Grand Duchess Tatiana, aged fifteen, now colonel 

 of the 14th Regiment of Lancers. Princess Charlotte 

 of Prussia, who married Tsar Nicholas I., on becoming 

 a widow, asked her brother, the Prussian king, to 

 transfer to her the colonelcy of the 6th Regiment of 

 Prussian Cuirassiers, So she became the first woman 

 colonel of a regiment. There is now, says the writer, a 

 small army of women colonels in Europe — about fifty he 

 reckons. The late Queen Victoria was colonel of the 

 1st Regiment of Prussian Dragoons of the Guard, but 

 never saw them or donned their uniform. 



MOST NUMEROUS IN GERMANY. 



Women colonels are most numerous in Germany. 

 " The Kaiser creates them in batches every time he has 

 nothing else to do," His daughter, Princess Victoria 

 Louise, is second head of the famous " Death's Head " 

 Lancers, The German Crown Princess is colonel in the 

 2nd Silesian Dragoons, and takes her position seriously. 

 She never misses an opportunity of leading her men. 

 Her mother, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg- 

 Si hwerin, is colonel of the 2nd Mecklenburg Dragoons. 

 Princess Eitel Friedrich, wife of the Kaiser's favourite 

 Son, is colonel nf the 12th Dragoons, Princess .■\dolf of 

 Schaumburg-Lippe commands the 86th Fusiliers, .A.U 

 these German Princesses lead their regiments at the 

 annual Kaiser Parades held in .Vugust and November. 

 The Kaiser's two sisters — the Crown Princess Sofia of 

 Greece and Princess Margaret of Hesse — are zealous in 

 their colonelcy. The Kai.ser's wife commands two 

 reu'iments : she is colonel of the 86lh Regiment of 

 Prussian Fusiliers, and also of the Hussars of the 

 Guard of Grodno, a Russian regiment. " Carmen 

 S\lva," thi Queen of Roumania, is colonel of the 

 ind Hattalion of Roumanian Light Infantry. Queen 

 Miry of England is a colonel of the 5th Russian 

 Lancers. (Jucen Olga of Greece is " the only petti- 

 coaled admiral in the world." 



IF THEY TURNED SUFFRAGETTES ! 



The writer closes with a formidable suggestion, which 

 the conduct of the militant suffragettes makes not 

 quite ini'onccivable : — 



What if tlic^e fifty pctlicoaled colonels suJdcnly rebellcil 

 aijAinat ni.in rule .in'l called their regiments to Ihcir aid 1 In 

 llienry at Ictsl they command close upon 60,000 of the best 

 troii[N in Kiimpe. Kaiier William, especially, would have a 

 few warm moments before he collected the component parts of 

 his " mailed fist," 



ARTISTS ON LADIES' H.\TS. 



The Strand for July publishes a symposium of 

 artists' views on ladies' hats. The contributors are 

 given a number of photographs of halted ladies, and 

 asked to pronounce upon the respective beauty of the 

 headgear. There are some general principles expressed 

 that may be quoted here. Mr. William Llewellyn, 

 A.R.A., says that " whenever possible, a hat should 

 be so constructed as to follow the lines of the wearer's 

 head. Also every effort should be made to emphasise 

 and make the most of the good points of the wearer's 

 face." Mr. Byam Shaw says: — "The most paintable 

 hats I ever remember having seen were, paradoxically 

 enough, not hats at all, but the bonnets of the Early 

 Victorian period. My reason for this choice lies in the 

 fact that the lines of the design strike me as framing 

 the face in a particularly attractive manner, and also 

 following the lines of the head in the crown in a way 

 which serves to show off the wearer's features to the 

 best possible advantage." Mr. Harrington Mann says : 

 — " Englishwomen have, I think, recently made 

 decided steps in the matter of tasteful dressing, and 

 can most certainly now compete with their sisters of 

 any nationality in smartness in this respect." Mr. 

 Walter Crane says that from an artistic point of 

 view designers of hats would at all times be well 

 advised to keep to natural lines, and not to strive too 

 much for ultra-fashionable effects. 



The Girl's Own I'uNr li,r Jiii> ^;i\<s a sketch of the 

 various stages of disc overy in the invention of " wire- 

 ess "—Clerk Maxwell, Hertz, Branly, Lodge, Marconi, 



PLEA FOR JAPANESE FOOTWEAR. 



In the Charily Organisation Revinv for June Mr, J, C, 

 Pringle expatiates on " this misery of boots," and says 

 that boots at two guineas re-soled at six shillings or 

 over are unquestionably a sound kind of footgear. 

 But that is no reason why the remaining forty-five 

 millions of the United Kingdom should throw away 

 health and comfort in order to appear to be using that 

 sound footwear. He commends the specifically Japanese 

 footwear, which consists of a plain, flat wooden sole. 

 with two transverse iikulcs let into the underside of it. 

 The foot is so unconfined that no fitting or shaping of 

 any sort is required. This gives an absolute assurance, 

 antl dry feet, while it is cheap, A pair of men's " geta,'' 

 as this footwear is called, cost from jd, to is. -\d. 

 Straw sandals cost id. a pair. No wonder the Japanese 

 are cheerful, as they never need fear wet feet. .\ visitor 

 on entering a house iakes oft the " geta," and his feet 

 arc clad in pure white " tabi," or do.se-fitting linen 

 shoes. 



The leading feature of the June number of the 

 Bookman is the article on Wilkie Collins by Mr. .\rthur 

 Compton-Rickett, The distinctive characteristics of 

 (!ollins's works are stated to be his technical dexterity 

 as a story-teller, his subtle sense of dramatic effect, and 

 his faculty for pictorial suggestion. Not the least 

 tribute to his powers is to be found in the countless 

 imitations which his writings have evoked. 



