Percy.—You could do no harm by putting a few drops of tincture of benzoin into the water in which you wash your face, but we much doubt whether it would do any good. You must attend to your digestion and always wear a veil when you go out. A little glycerine and rose water applied to the face may relieve the burning.

Enid.—Individuals differ greatly in the amount that they perspire. Some persons seem scarcely to perspire at all, while others get wet through from any trifling exertion. As a rule fat persons perspire more than thinner ones, and in them it is salutary, as it reduces their fat. Excessive sweating is often hereditary, as, indeed, it seems to be in your case. You may not attempt to check perspiration too much, for the sweat is an excretion by the skin from the blood—it is one of the methods by which the blood gets rid of its impurities. The best known, and one of the most satisfactory preparations for limiting the perspiration from the face and hands, is toilet vinegar. Persons who perspire profusely should wear woollen undergarments and change them frequently.

Giddy Girl.—Giddiness or vertigo is a symptom met with in very many complaints. In biliousness, acute indigestion and occasionally in chronic indigestion, giddiness is not uncommon. In certain diseases of the ears giddiness is usually present in a very aggravated form. It occasionally occurs from wax in the ears, and is not at all uncommon while the ears are being syringed. Then there is the vertigo associated with errors of sight—a common, but often overlooked variety. And there is the true brain vertigo—a common symptom of disease of the nervous system. In anæmia, and one or two diseases of the heart, giddiness is common—due to the brain not being sufficiently supplied with blood. Here you have the cause of vertigo in a nutshell. To tell which of them is causing your giddiness, with nothing whatever to guide us to a conclusion, is quite impossible.

Foolish.—The pseudonym you have chosen is very appropriate. You are exceedingly foolish to take drugs of which you know nothing; but it is worse than foolish, it is criminal. You look with horror upon a man who is a chronic drunkard. You consider it is a very great crime to drink more alcohol than is necessary; is it not an equally serious crime to take more drugs than are necessary? You object to this because alcohol deprives you of reason, whereas the drug you take does not. But you are wrong; the drug you are taking does interfere with the mind. It is worse than alcohol in many ways. To take a drug which is unnecessary is wrong; but the drug you take, cocaine, is one of the most fatal of all to take habitually. You are killing yourself by it. All persons who acquire the cocaine habit die from it, unless they stop their pernicious habit very soon. If you wish to save your life you must abandon your habit without delay. As we said before, to take cocaine is worse than to get drunk—it is more injurious to the body, more fatal to the mind, and more destructive to morality. But where did you get the cocaine? Chemists are forbidden to give poisons to silly girls.

Aged 50.—At your time of life club-foot cannot be cured by operation or otherwise. If the foot is more trouble than good, you can have it removed; there is nothing else that can be done.

Maid of Astolat.—Yes; by all means continue with the treatment. It often takes a long time to completely eradicate acne.

Curious.—It is an old superstition that you can cure warts by rubbing them with a potato, and then giving the potato to a pig to eat. Like most similar superstitions it does not bear investigation.

STUDY AND STUDIO.

“Jo March.”—1. Your fairy story is bright and pretty. You use the word “and” too often, and the closing scene about the giants and fairies reads as though it were hurried, in comparison with the rest of the little sketch. Were the flowers for the ladder unfading?—2. We think you might possibly succeed with fairy stories if you practised composition. What you have sent us is scarcely enough to show decided talent.

Cecilia—1. You ought to be guided by your teacher as to the number of hours you should practise daily. It is said that Paganini, when asked how long it would take to learn the violin, replied, “Twelve hours a day for twenty years.” On the other hand, we have heard on very illustrious authority that three hours taken in separate periods of practice is enough for anyone. One thing you may receive as certain—that when you get jaded and listless, practising ceases to be of use. So long as you can keep your attention alive and alert, practising will do you good. Let us urge you to persevere and be diligent. “The gods give nothing without labour unto mankind” is an old Greek saying, and though you may not always “like” practising, you will reap the reward in years to come if you apply yourself strenuously now.—2. For learning music by heart, your second suggestion is the best—to study it quite accurately, little by little. You may occasionally of course try to give a general reproduction of a piece, but that method alone would not make you play really well from memory.

Mrs. Walker, Litlington Rectory, Berwick, Sussex, kindly sends us the rules of various improvement societies, and offers to give information about them to any of our girl readers. They are the following:—Early Rising Society, Reading Society, Musical Society, Walking Society, Language Society, Plain Work Society, Knitting and Fancy Work Society. Surely the readers who consult us about societies will find something here to suit every need. We advise them to apply to the Hon. Secretary, Mrs. Walker, enclosing a stamped envelope.

Sympathetic.—The real name of “Claribel” was Charlotte Alington Barnard. She was born in 1830, and married in 1854. Her master was Mr. W. H. Holmes. She published a hundred ballads which have won extraordinary popularity. She died at Dover in 1869. This is all we know of her history. Possibly the sadder tone (to which you refer) of her later ballads may have been due to failing strength and health, as her death occurred quite in the prime of life.

Historian.—We find it difficult to answer your question about the Czar and the succession to the Russian throne without seeing the paragraph to which you refer, but certainly there is no Salic law in Russia. We cannot trace the letter you sent us six months ago. Questions can never be answered immediately, as we go to press long before you receive your magazine, but we endeavour to reply as quickly as possible.

INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENCE.

“Florence” has four would-be correspondents—(Miss) E. Randall, Hopeville, The Greenway, Uxbridge, Middlesex; H. Hughes, Downfield, Stroud, Gloucestershire; Amy Day, 70, Broomfield Street, Crisp Street, Poplar; and Mabel Brown, 24, Brigden Street, Brighton. If “Florence” would allow us to print her address here, it would expedite matters.

Miss Elsie Highton, Brigham, Keswick, Cumberland, would like to correspond with Miss Marguerite Rahier, or with another French lady.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Carillon.—We think we have answered your question before about carron oil, but as it may be out of print, we are glad to do so again. Carron oil is equal parts of olive oil and lime water well shaken together, and is employed as a remedy for burns. Some doctors add a very little laudanum to it. It was first employed at the Carron Ironworks, near Falkirk.

Enona.—1. A cartoon is a design drawn on strong paper in chalks or distemper, to be afterwards calked through, and transferred to the fresh plaster of a wall to be painted in fresco oil-colour or tapestry. The finest cartoons known are those executed by Raphael for Leo X. in 1515 and 1516 as patterns for tapestry. Each of them is about twelve feet high, is drawn with chalk on strong paper, and coloured in distemper by that master and his pupils. They were ten in number, but three have been lost. The seven you have seen at the South Kensington Museum were bought in Flanders by Rubens for our King Charles I., and we owe their preservation to Cromwell, who bought them from the King’s private collection for the country. They are thought to be the finest of Raphael’s works.—2. A cartouche is a different thing entirely, and you have mixed up the two perhaps from seeing both in the museums in London, where you have seen the latter applied to an elliptical oval on the ancient Egyptian monuments, and in papyri also, on which are hieroglyphic characters expressing the names and titles of Egyptian kings. In architecture a cartouche is a tablet for ornament or for an inscription, formed like a sheet of paper with its edges rolled up.

Dorothy.—If you be interested in the history and use of bells, you had better read North’s English Bells and Bell Lore, re-edited by the Rev. W. Beresford. The ancient “mote bell” was rung to assemble the people in cases of danger, or for public purposes, by command of Edward the Confessor. The “dole meadow bell” used to summon the parishioners to vestry meetings. The “storm bell” was appointed to “cause the fiends and wicked spirytes to cease of the movyng of the tempeste,” to which Bishop Latimer (martyr) made allusion in one of his sermons (published by the Parker Society). There was also the “common bell” and the “pancake bell” used at Shrovetide to summon people to confession. Besides these uses, certain bells were employed for the use of farming—calling the country-folk to seed-sowing, harvesting, and gleaning, and which were rung also on “Plough Monday.” The custom of ringing “joy bells” at coronations, royal birthdays, and weddings, is familiar to all, as well as the “passing bell” to announce a death, the tolling at funerals and executions, and the terror-inspiring “fire bell.” We cannot tell you more in our correspondence columns. Read the exhaustive work we have named on bell lore.

Eugenie.—The second Monday in July, 1940, will be the 8th. Wrinkles in the forehead are caused by raising the eyebrows, which draws the skin into lines and rolls. The only way to cure them is by leaving off making that special grimace, which makes you look not only both old and plain, but gives a silly and an unhappy expression.

Firenze.—Catafalco is an Italian word, meaning “a scaffold” or funeral canopy, and is applied to a temporary piece of woodwork decorated with painting and sculptures, representing a tomb, and employed in funeral solemnities. We have the word in French also, catafalque, which dates from the fifteenth or sixteenth century.

Paddy.—Jan. 13th, 1866, was a Saturday; Feb. 17th, 1864, was a Wednesday.

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