WOMEN AND WAR.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVI, Issue 68, 20 March 1915, Page 18

WOMEN AND WAR.

HOW WOMEN HELP. j I hope you all realise that it is not [ only the soldiers and sailors who are fighting. Every woman in England who does her best, who keeps her home together, and who keeps a smiling face, is helping in tho war.—Mrs. Winston Churchill. WORK Or WOMEN PATROLS. It is stated that the Women Patrols have achieved marked success in looking after "flighty" girls in the hood of military camps. One commanding officer states that there is a great improvement in the neighbourhood of his camp. The girls and recruits are behaving better, he says-, because they know that people are now looking after them. WOMEN POLICE VOLUNTEERS. The Women Police Volunteer Corps in London was formed at the beginning of the war for purposes of general usefulness, and especially to assist the regular police and the vigilance associations in matters pertaining to women and children. Though of recent growth, the organisation has already done much useful work. At the railway stations refugees have been met, helped, and afterwards placed. Some volunteers also attend police courts and report on cases in which women are principally concerned. Others take duty in parks and open spaces to protect children. Members undergo a course of instruction in first aid, drill, signalling, self-defence, and Police Court procedure. The corps has no connection with any political or other organisation. It is hoped that it will permanently be established, and by proving its efficiency it will eventually 'obtain official recognition. BUSINESS AS USUAL. | From the day that war was declared the Primrose League immediately stopped all political propaganda. Party differences 1 were sunk for the time being, and there is plenty of evidence to show that the 800,000 members of the league are loyally and whole-heartedly co-operating in the great national work which lies before the country. Lady Milman, who with her committee at the head offices of the League, 64, Victoria Street, has associated herself with the work of the Red Cross Society, will be grateful for any assistance which women can give for providing garments and other necessities for the wounded. Many of the members of this League are having the work given out to poor gentlewomen and small dressmakers. This endeavour to live up to "Business as usual" will help many a poor, sad woman to keep the flag flying, and to determine, in spite of all diffito js»tinue the^game,

A NATION OF STOICS. The "Telegraph" correspondent pays a fine tribute to the Belgian character. Tho silence, the stoicism, with which these country people go amazes mc, he says. If you talk with them you discover they have the most terrorising conception of German soldiery. But they do not, in my experience, "wail or knock the breast." They simply take up their bandies and move on. And the women do not for the most part weep, though there is much there for tears. OPENINGS FOR WOMEN. Bridewell House, E.C., is being used as the City of London depot for training unemployed women clerks. Each woman accepted is expected to undergo forty hours' training a week, for which'the payment is 10/. A further small allowance foe travelling expenses is paid, and dinner and tea are supplied at the house for 2d a day. The subjects taught include French, dressmaking, domestic economy, and the care and hygiene of infants. SERVIAN WOMEN. There is no country in the world where women occupy a more dignified or honoured position in the home than Servio. The Servian idea is quite different from that of the Turk, who keeps his women behind shut doors, or the German, whose ideal woman is a good "housfrau." In Servia the woman is the companion of the man. A man is responsible for his unmarried sisters, and throughout the Balkan States it is considered rather a breach of etiquette for him to marry before his older sister. No Servian girl would feel she could hold up her head in society unless she could speak four languages. There is hardly a Servian woman who cannot play some musical instrument. Embroidery, painting, drawing, and sculpture are all studied. Servian women are very domesticated, and the highest ladies pay personal attention to trivial matters of housekeeping. There are two women doctors practising in Belgrade, and women teachers galore. But public opinion on the whole is rather against women entering the labour market. THE WOMEN WHO KNIT. There is an old and a beautiful tradition that the knitting woman weaves something of her thought, something unseen and impalpable, into the fabric of her work: Charle* Dickens used that idea, although in terrible form, in hie "Tale of Two Cities." Mme. Defarge wove into her knitting the names of those whom she had silently condemned, and incidentally we may wonder why we hear so. little of Mme. Defarge from the histrionic (feminists, who delight in tableaux and theatrical displays. Katharine Hale, the Canadian poet, has written something worthy about the' innumerable women who are knitting for the soldiers of Europe: — All through the country in the autumn stillness, A web of. grey spreads strangely, rim to And you may hear the sound of knitting needles, Incessant, gentle, dim. A tiny click of little wooden needles, Ellin amid the sianthood of war; Whispers of women, tireless and patient, Who weave the web afar. Little stories of home-folk (cays the New York "Evening Post" come out of this knitting. One is of a woman with a bundle under her arm who hailed a boy in a street-car. "You are a boy scout," she said, having seen hie uniform. When he had assured,her that he was and that it was hie duty to do 'one good deed every day, she unrolled the bundle and made him hold her skein of wool while she wound it in the street-car. Another etory is of three women who wanted to help somehow and paid for a small notice iin a newspaper that they would supply wool free to any woman who wanted to , knit but could not afford to pay for her ' owe wool. The single four-line advertisement brought 1,100 replies.