How Their Lustre Can Be Retained A Court at San Francisco recently issued an order directing a woman to wear for 30 days each year a $10,000 necklace of a deceased relative in order to keep the pearls "'alive" by bodily contact.
Since the death of the relative the pearls had not been worn, and the Court was told that, as a result they had lost much of their lustre. The order to wear them 30 days a year followed that assertion.
According to Julius Wodiska, of San Francisco, however, the idea that the warmth of the human body will prevent pearls from losing their natural _brilliancy,—or "dying," is altogether wrong. On the other hand, he asserted if the wearer perspires at all freely, or if the perspiration contains an excess of acidity the pearls are attacked, to their obvious detriment, just as readily as is the gold jewellery which, under similar conditions, dis colours the skin with greenish marks.
"I know of no article of feminme adornment more beautiful than pearls or pearl necklaces," Mr. Wodiska went on, "and if proper care of them is taken they will retain their lustre and value indefinitoly. To begin with, they should be kept in as even a temperature as possible, for they expand and contract on exposure to heat and cold. If they are brought in contact with hot damp or gaseous atmosphere they will absorb the impurities, and the brilliancy of the outer skin will deteriorate. Therefore, when pearls are not in use, care should be taken to store them in places where the atmosphere is as even and pure as possible.
"There are three kinds of pearls," Mr. Wodiska continued, "the genuine, the artificial, and the imitation. The genuine, of course, can never be reproduced by man. There are some very fine imitations made, however, by the average layman, which cannot be distinguished from the genuine.
experts accustomed to the handling of real pearls, of course, know the imitations for what they are almost at first sight."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.