AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 123, 25 May 1923, Page 9

AMONG OURSELVES.

THE WEEKLY BUDGET. j (By COXSTA_.CE CLYDE.) WHERE ENGLISHWOMEN .CORE. However Englishwomen themselves may bemoan a certain reaction against feminism at the moment, there is no doubt that they themselves are lieing appreciated in other countries, which is. the next best thing to being considered in one's own. The French, for instance, are claiming their aid in their own special girl guides movement. In France the girl guides movement is well under way, the guides themselves being called eclaisseuses. There arc plenty for the rank and file, hut not enough to act as officers. Therefore Englishwomen by request are being dispatched to France to act as trainers: this step has the approval of Lady Baden Powell. It is pleasant to note that families of high rank in France are permitting their daughters to join the movement, for until quite recently young women of high position were much secluded even in that western and repubjiean country. A somewhat similar compliment has been paid the Englishwomen's Auxiliary Service, which was formerly the women police. The German authorities wish to consider the question of having women police at Cologne, so the British authorities have been requested to permit some member of the Auxiliary Service to give her views and talk the matter over. — A woman of considerable experience in the matter, a Miss Allen, is being sent out to Cologne. MADAME KE-.IAL. REFORMER. The wife of the noted Turk, Kemal, is only nineteen years of age, and thoroughly with the moderns, wearing no veil, and often holding informal meetings with politicians in the Assembly rooms, somewhat to the scandal of the oldfashioned. _he has adopted the Christian fashion of \he wedding ring, and announces her intention of never permitting another wife. In other respects, however, she declares herself true Moslem. She was educated partly at Chiselhurst, England, TJut one of her chief friends is the well-known American lady, Miss Claire Sheridan, who has caused some annoyance by declaring that Turkish men are superior even to Americans. •Somehow it is always considered unpatriotic of women to avow preference for the men of other nations, though Englishmen will "crack up" the women of - other nationalities without thinking I they should incur blame. Though so young, Kemal's wife has known the vicissitudes of war, having been placed under surveillance in Smyrna as a spy. She is only one of several Turkish women who have come to the fore of late, the reason of Turkish tolerance being due to the fact, it is said, that in spite of all modernism, they are enthusiastically and genuinely attached to their own religion, alleging that much that seemed essential to that faith is really not necessary. The veil, for instance, has been discovered to be of Persian origin, and therefore, in spite of very much shocked

old gentlemen in Turkish lands, may be quite properly put aside. rXCSI'AL OCCCPATTOX... There has lately died Mrs. Ayres I .irdic, one of the first women accountants in England. She was also- a noted suffragist. A women to the fore at present is Miss .lunette Stanbridgc, who states of her occupation, "Bookmaking is a woman's business—a game of wit and instinct, with plenty of fun and excitement." She is a pretty girl of about twenty-one. who conducts her own commission agency in Piccadilly. London, witli a manager and two clerks to help. She started her bookmaking business with a capital of £100. "[ am worth considerably more than that now.'' she said when interviewed, "but many times during the first year I had to run round London for money to meet the bets. There were times when T had to pay out hundreds of pounds with a banking account of fifteen shillings. Within a year, however. 1 established myself." A XEW 01 RES' SCHOOL. Two organisations, the London County Council and a society of Retail Traders, have opened a new school largely for the benefit of girls who wish preparation for the higher walks of shop life. For ordinary routine counter work, il has been noticed, there arc girls in plenty, but the authorities consider that there is more demand than supply of women to take up the higher branches, to act nB buyers and sellers, and to travel for their firms. As a result, this school lias been formed. The course takes a year. The girls lenrn to understand manufactured goods, to know all possible about presenti day needs, and also how to treat customers, this latter being taught by actual demonstration. As a result of some such training many women to-day arc earning excellent salaries, besides travelling in interesting countries. As one authority says: "When it is remembered that one shop may contain five thousand employees, one can see what, positions arc available in the way of departmental control as well as travelling for the firm. - ' The same authority mentions that the I living-ill system, which used to be almost universal in London, is now not so general even for women employees. Possibly as a result they have become more independent in character. In France the women shop employees have long been encouraged to rise in their occupation, many of the shop girls, though the daughters of quite simple people, being able to talk to their customers in several languages, besides continually acquiring information as to their own business. MOTHEHHOOD, A TRADE. "Time and Tide" lias been holding up to some opprobrium Sir Montagu | f*harpc, X.C, chairman of the Middlesex I Quarter Session, who hns been proclnimj ing that if much more is done tor mothers, motherhood will be undertaken as a trade. He seems distressed at this idea. Sir Montagu evidently considers that because the women have asked for something to lie done for mothers as such, therefore that something is as good as done, therefore, like Pooh-Bah, why not say it has been done? As a matter of fact the women are still asking, and they must obtain considerably more than they have requested before motherI hood will be undertaken as a means of livelihood! Bernard Shaw's apothegm is more to the point. "Looked at as a profession, no woman should be expected to undertake motherliood under five thousand a year." ■