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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1950-06-29, Page 3These Things Make Sewing Easier Sewing methods are getting mote streamlined all the time. The homemaker needs to keep up to slate, if she would save time and lahobr in garment construction. For instance, the. tedious process of hemming skirts by hand is out- dated, Now you scan do a finished job on the sewing machine. A blind -stitch attachment, recently placed on the market, makes this possible. You sineply remove the regular presser foot from the machine and attach this instead. It k easy to use, It works for hemming tuw- els, curtains or almost aeythhlg, And on lightweight or heavy- weight materials. • And do you have a buttonhole attachment for your machine?; it is a great aid, if your have lots of but- tonholes to make. I£ you don't feel like going to this exlietse, do, at least, buy a pair of •buttonhole shears, Then you can cut each hole just the right size. At very small expense today you can get an electric light for the sewing machine. It will save your eyes, and help you do a better job of stitching. Check the lights in your sewing -room, too. For good work, you must have plenty of Tight, without glare or shadows, Nowa that many houses have elec- tricity, we women all long for tt new electriec sewing machine. But if your old foot -treadle machine is in good shape; why wait for that day to conte? At no great cost you can buy a motor attachment for your machine, Any handy man can mount it. Even the best machine won't continue to do good work unless it has regular care. This spring is a good time to go over yours and see that it is thoroughly cleaned and oiled, Better check your supply of sewing machine needles, When one gets blunted, replace it with a new, sharp one, And use a needle of a size suitable for the material you're working on. That goes for hand sewing, too, You'll want a supply of sharp, slender needles, in several differ- ent sizes. Do you have trouble threading needles? Then you should get one of those inexpensive needle threaders. There's a hem marker gadget that any husband will appreciate when he's called on to stick the pins around the hem of your skirt. It stands on the floor and has .an adjustable gauge which moves up and down a measuring stick. The neat part is the way it holds the goods while you stick a pin through the clamp. Then, presto it releases and you find the pin piercing the goods, and always horizontally. We could name various inciden- tals you should have at hand before starting your sewing. Shears are taken for granted, But are yours sharp along the full length? Better get them sharpened by a prrofessional if they have a dull spot. A good pair of shears should be made of steel, Blades should be held together by a screw instead of being rivet- ed. The handle is bent at an angle so blades can lie more .nearly horizontal. while cutting at a table. Scissors are differentiated by be- ing shorter. They serve for snipping thread and rougher uses, while the shears should be kept for cutting cloth only. And don't forget your pressing equipment. A clean, well padded ironing board is a "must." Also a sleeve board. It's not only handy for sleeves but for other places hard to .get at. Of course, you'll want a good pressing cloth. Don't run to the dish -towel drawer when you need one. Specially made cloths hold moisture better and have no lint. Jersey, Ve vet and Corduroy Favored Fabrics For Fall Cape influence is typified by gabardine shit. The capelet is detachable. San Francisco—Practical fabrics are the "style centennial" news for San Francisvo's 100th birthday of its fashion industry. Wool jersey, velvet and corduroy share the ecuteunials honors this month as fall styles are unveiled. There's a well -tailored look in everything from play clothes. to party dresses, and expensive -look- ing accents and trimmings play a second -fiddle. The feminine cape influence is toted in both coats and suits, Generous use of broadcloth achieves this cape -like coat. typified by a detachable shoulder. cape suit. Another cape -like coat has yards of broadcloth with deeply - ser dolman sleeves that taper at the wrists, topped by a youthful reversible collar, Sophistication is again the ob- jective for sportswear, In this field, the "mix 'em and match '010" theme in chamois -soft coruroy for an interesting and practical slacks, vest Mother -Daughter and jacket set. It has a two-tone vest to underline the contrasting colored yoke. For evening, a raspberry satin skirt with quilted pockets is ac- cented by a jet-black velvet bodice in a formal. Velvet also makes news in hats, many of which have large and angular -shaped brims. duo is in corduroy. Corduroy is in the limelight for mother and daughter, too, There's a jumper set that's demure but durable to go shopping, to school, and to Sunday picnics in high style. It has bertha shoulder interest ac- cented by tiny buttons to the waist which is finished by a narrow self - fabric belt. There Is A Season "For everything there is a sea- son," said the moody author of Ecclesiastes, going on 'to specify among other things, "a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted." No gardener could quibble with that, But on a simmering Early Summer day most gardeners can ask why, at this particular time, the seasons so con- spicuously overlap, This is the time to plant and tend the seedlings. But it also is the time to pluck up the weeds which plant themselves. This is the time to cut the grass, which is growing like mad on the lawn, in the orchard, beside the path and in the lesser tended parts of the garden itself. This is the time to trim the hedge, which was so neat two weeks ago and now is a brist- ling mass of eager shoots intent on rivaling oaks and elms. This is a time to hoe and till and spray and dust and nip off dead lilacs and tie up the rose bushes and stake the peonies. This is a tinsel , Why does grass grow two inches overnight, just now, when it has all summer ahead? Certainly there is an answer, simple and logical and based in tate solid facts of botany. But why, then, does that answer not apply to beans, say, or sweet corn? Besides, your gardener is not real- ly asking for logical answers. He is pleading for time. Time to get all the jobs done. The grapes should be sprayed again. Blackberries are in blossom. The cherry trees are loaded, Butter- cups are in bloom. So is hawkweed. Clover and chickweed flourish in the lettuce bed. Iris are in. flower. "For everything there is a season," How true, how true) And this seems to be it, the season for everything at once.—New York Titles, Farewell From Number 4003 — Dr. John W. Lamle, 75, of Maple Hill, retiring after 52 years of rural medical practice, gets a farewell smile from three -months -old Cheryl Marie Oliver, the 4003rd and last baby he delivered, Holding the baby is her mother, Mrs, Robert •Oliver. I+riends and patients, held a giant farewell party honoring the doctor on his retirement, There's No Pardon For A Hanged Man So—Consider Yotir Verdict How would you feel if you were accused of a crime you didn't com- mit? Indignant, of course; but the English legal system is acknowl- edged to be the best in the world, giving the most chances to the prisoner et the bar, so if you're innocent you'll be acquitted. There's no reason for worrying. Yet, if it were ate. I know that I would worry writes Cyril Ramsay Jones, in "Answers." I would re- member a Court of Inquiry in the Army during the war when two equally honest witnesses gave con- tradictory accounts of the same accident. I would consider how dif- ficult it is for anyone—with the best wilt in the world—to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth." I would call to mind cases where the "culprit" has been given a free pardon after years of unjust imprisonment. And I would be profoundly dis- turbed by the memory of a book, "Verdict in Dispute" by Edgar Lustgarten, I have just read, in which a brilliant barrister, Mr. Edgar Lustgarten, takes six fa- mous murder cases to pieces with the object of showing that the verdicts were, to say the least, doubtful justice. That is the most awful fate of all—to be punished for a murder of which you are innocen t. There is no pardon for a hanged man. James Maybrick, a substantial Liverpool cotton broker, died on May Ilth, 1889. The post-mortem revealed traces of arsenic in his body. His American wife, Florence, twenty-six years his junior, was arrested. It transpired that she had a lover, and during the prelimin- ary hearings Mrs. Itfaybricic was hissed in court. When she was brought to trial the Crown proved (a) that Mrs. Maybrick had bought fly -papers containing arsenic and soaked them in water, (b) that nurses had seen her handling her husband's meat - juice which was later found to contain arsenic, (c) that she had written to her lover stating that Maybrick was "sick unto death" at a time when othe doctors were optimistic about his recovery. But the accused was fortunate in her defending counsel, Sir Charles Russell, one of the greatest advo- cates who ever stood at the English Bar. In cross-examination he esta- blished that the flypapers were bought and soaked quite openly and that arsenic was used as a cos- metic; that Maybrick's brother had first put the idea of poisoning in the minds of both doctors and nurses; that Maybrick had been accustomed to taking arsenic as a medicine, Sir Charles forced the doctorsto admit that death aright have been the result of "natural causes;" Speaking front the dock (until 1898 defendants were not allowed to give evidence on oath) Mrs? Maybrick stated that she had put a powder in the neat -juice at the urgent request of her husband. Whether this was true or not, Russell had proved that all tine evidence brought by the Crown could equally well point to natural causes and he was, therefore, justi- fied in telling the jury: "There is en safe resting place on which you can justify a finding that this was a death of arsenical poisoning." After a rather muddled sumnting- up.by the judge the jury brought in a verdict of guilty, but as a result of public outcry sentence of death was later commuutecl to life im- prisonment. On the evidence (and a jury has no business to consider anything else) there seems little doubt that Florence Maybrick was innocent. So, according to Mr. Lustgarten, was Edith Thompson in the famous case involving herself and Frederick Bywaters. Late on a March evening of 1922 Mr. and Mrs. Percy Thompson were returning front the theatre to their respectable home in Ilford. Essex. Suddenly a man thrust the wife aside, stabbed the husband viciously in the neck and disappeared. Shriek- ing "Don't! Don't!" Mrs. Thomp- son ran for help. But her husband was beyond aid. Despite the fact that the wounds on Itis body were plain for all to see, Mrs, Thompson in her ac- count to the police did not mention an assailant. Naturally, the police made further inquiries and discov- ered that she was having an affair with a Merchant Navy steward, aged twenty—her junior by eight years. Confronted with her lover at the police station Edith broke down and Bywater, though denying murder, admitted the knife assault. This was obviously enough to hang hint, and duly proved so. But the police were itot satisfied; they charged Edith with murder as well. Since Bywaters, not she, had struck the blow the Crown had' to prove that he had done it with her kt,owledge and at Iter direction. To do this they relied on a number of of her letters found in Bywater's roost. In these there were refer- ences to desperate action, to pow- dered glass and to something bit- ter in her husband's tea, How did the great Sir Henry Curtis -Bennett, who was defending Edith Thompson, meet these damn- ing admissions? By the anost amaz- ing and, ultimately, the most con- vincing pleas ever advanced in a Court of Law. TIe simply denied that they had any relatio7 at all to fact and set out to prove it. Edith Thompson, he said, was "not some ordinary woman; she is one of those striking personalities that stand out." Possessed of a vitality and a capacity for romantic passion far too great for her dull Ilford husband she frantically sought an outlet for her restless (less. She found it, as her letters show, in novels whose characters were completely real to her—snore real than the events of ordinary life. Above tl she found it in By - waters, . he regarded her affair with this rather ordinary shipping entplbyec as one of the great love affairs of all time. When it lacked romantic details she supplied Client from her own active imagination. IIer letters contained a great saga of her battle with her father and sister, who wanted her to give up Bywaters. This was the purest fa- brication, as both father and sister testified in court. Frustrated by ordinary existence she lived "an extraordinary life of make-believe," part of which was the operatic plot to murder Iter husband, She never intended it to be carried out. Indeed, as Bywaters said, there never was a plan at alt. But because he transformed lictiou into fact, they both went to the gallows. Mr. Lustgarten does not hold Edith Thompson blameless, but be does maintain that she was not guilty of murder. For to live a life apart in "an endless romantic tale" is one thing; and to intend a man's death and to arrange for someone else to compass it is quite another. The jury were not • convinced, or else refused to see this distinction and sent Edith Thompson to the gallows. Were the jury prejudiced? It is to the danger of prejudicial juries that Air. Lustgarten directs his most telling eloquence. Whatever we may think of the character or behavior of the accused, as jurors we are concerned with the evidence only. If on that evidence we find the prisoner guilty we have done our dirty. But if, because of our own preconceived ideas, we deny the prisoner the benefit of any reason- able doubt to which he is entitled, we ourselves are guilty of that frightening moral crime known as miscarriage of justice. Beware Of Poison Ivy. Yuen anti begins to itch. Your rttb ft again ai,cl again. A rash de• vclops followed by inflammation of the skin. When the inflamed- area begins to spread and sins'! !watery Misters form, the itch he, nates maddening. 'These developments may occur in a few hours or may take eevt'ral days, Poison ivy, Dors gia of the countryside has struck. Fotutd in every provinec. poison ivy grows in greatest profusion ht Ontario and western Quebec. Front Quebec City eastward it is found less frecttently, and from Winnipeg to the Pacific ecia;t grows mainly at lake and woodland re- sorts. Poison ivy grows as a trailing vine or au upright plant The leaves, arranged alternately on woody stent are composed of three smaller leaflets. In early summer shall whitish flowers ap- pear in the axils of the leaves. (lusters of greenish yellow fruit which gradually turn white, succeed the flowers in some locations. Tlie toxic substance in poison ivy is called "urushiol" which is con- tained in the leaves, flowers, fruit. stents or roots, It may persist for mouths on gloves, tools, shoes and picnic outfits. Dogs, cats and other animals may transmit it to humans, it is even claimed that particles of it are carried in the smoke from burning ivy. Treatment for icy poisoning con- sists of washing affected parts witlt laundry soap and warm water im- mediately after contact. \Trashing with aleoltoi, kerosene or gasoline are alteratives, I'otassiunt perman- ganate solution and calamine lotion are recommended for certain rases of poison ivy dermatitis. Woodiot Farming Brings Real Revenue Modern tree farming has made wood the second most important ccrop produced on the 680 -acre Half -Mile High stock farm of Wal- lace Hanline, Grant County, Rest Virginia. Two years ago in one selective cutting, Hanline harvested a quartter million board feet of hardwood netting hint 85,500, Only through scientific woodlot management has this woodlot farm- er been able to realize his success. Four generations of highly success- ful fire prevention practices and re- stocking with young seedlings has transformed once thought of waste land into a cash crop, Commenting on this increased farming revenue. several experts feel that many Canadian farmers could enjoy this also. Efficient cut- ting of timber and elimination of wastes would allow for increased yields and prevent destruction of the country's precious woodlands. Cutting should be timed to im- provve the quality of the woodlot and increase cash returns. Im- provement cutting betters grow- ing conditions in the woods. Thin- ning gives the more valuable species room to develop and release -cut- ting controls growth of undesirable saplings. Finally there are utiliza- tion cuttings which prepare logs for sale or fire wood. If the condition of the woodlot is carefully studied and analyzed and good woodlot management practices are employed, the much needed cash for further develop- ment of Canadian farms will be available. Head In The Clouds— "'Twigs," in the background, ;gra ie father of weds -old "Satnbo," seems ril;ltty proud of the atttn- tion his oftspting is receiving at the 11'liipsnade Zoo in Englat. d.. The newcomer'smother, "Girlie," however is a bit more down to earth, advising her youngster to rubberneck right back at the curious spectators.