AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 185, 7 August 1925, Page 11

AMONG OURSELVES.

A WEEKLY BUDGET. (By CONSTANCE CLYDE.) DR. MARIE STOPES' ULTIMATUM. Dr. Marie Stopes is a name well known throughout the Empire, and it is interesting to note that she is a pioneer of freedom in many respects* For instance, she has not taken the name of her husband, Mr. H. V. Roe. Also, with him she is fighting the question of assessing a man and his wife for income tax on their combined incomes. Dr. Stopes is much against this regulation, and has announced that she and her husband will go to prison rather than pay the tax. The women's organisations are rallying to her • support, and one of them hopes that "the spirited action of Dr. Marie Stopes and her husband will hasten reform in this respect." The ideals with which Dr. Stopes' name is usually connected have interested the National Conference of Labour Women in England, which met in Birmingham lately under the presidency of Miss 1 Ellen Wilkinson, M.P. THE WOMAN COLONIST. Conditions have so changed of late that a woman considering the colonies i as her future work place and home has to think over the matter very seriously before she decides to venture out to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or any other of the self-governing dependencies. Formerly girls and women came out only with husbands or brothers, and . their success depended entirely on that i of their male relatives, far more so, indeed, than if they had remained in the ; Homeland. Sometimes the men scarcely . realised what the women were giving up. On this point an old lady tells an in- . structive etory. Her sons resolved to go out to one of the new lands as farmers, , each taking a sister with them "to look after the home." But the mother, a \ woman evidently in advance of her time, ' asked somewhat pointedly: "And now, what shar» do they get when success

comes?" The brothers, to their credit, ! laughed and replied: "Well, we never thought of that. Of course, they'll be working as hard as we do," and a share was agreed upon. To-day women come out on theif own, and need not depend on such family arrangements. Even the British adviser realises this. "It is madness," she says, "for any woman to go abroad unless she is fully trained in whatsoever profession she cares to follow. . . . Nowadays," she adds, "modern inventions, ,such as wireless telephony, quick transport services, etc., make it perfectly practicable for women to colonise in safety. Wideawake women realise this, and are seizing the opportunity to go out to Kenya in Africa, to start coffee growing, or to the West Indies to build up coconut or cocoa plantations; ventures un- ] heard of before modern quick communi- I cations came along and made them both ' practical and delightful occupations for educated women to take up. Nowadays there is no reason whatever why the woman colonist should not take her place side by side with the male colonist j in those fascinating virgin lands and make a complete success of her venture." WOMEN TO THE FORE. Miss Florence Rana Sabin is the first woman to be elected to the National Academy of Sciences (U.S.). She is of the John Hopkins Medical School, and gained this distinction because of her work on "blood cells." The States possess again another interesting personality in Mrs. Felton, the only woman ever elected to the Senate. She was ninety years of age last June, and as a personal touch it is told of her that she still "trims her own hats." Miss Annette Ashberry is the first woman member of the English Society of Engineers; and, equal to Hooker, one of the few radium experts of her sex, is Miss Ethel Peyser, who tests and gives advice on all kinds of laboursaving devices for the home. She does this as practical scientist as well as experienced woman. In Tegard to women in engineering it is noteworthy that the Conference of the Women's Engineering Society held last month at Wembley, had four sessions. The first dealt with engineering,- chemistry and research, the second with industrial welfare and factory inspection, the third with commerce and salesmanship, and the fourth with electricity and domestic science. A special exhibit of women's work was arranged, and the public was permitted to attend at the conference also. The "Women's Leader" dwells upon the victory of Miss Keogh who has been admitted a member of the Dublin Stock Exchange. "It appears that this victory of equity and common sense was achieved only after considerable hesitation and heart searching on the part of existing members, Miss Ks«jgh's -entry being imperilled not by any written rule, but by the awful (we use it in its archaic . sense) taboos of tradition. However, we must sincerely hope that , what Dublin thinks to-day London will think to-morrow, or the day after." CHILD ADOPTION DX ENGLAND. The tendency in England to make more stringent the laws concerning adoption, lend some interest to the

National Children's Adoption Association vhich was founded in 1917, and which is f still doing well, nearly two thousand, nfants having been adopted in private j families since that period. As this issociation will have nothing to do with permanently sickly children, this is a ?ood record. Still, for every£thousand infants, mostly taken when "under a year, there are usually only one hundred foster parents applying. Then again, there is a rule that each child must be adopted by someone of the same faith as that in which it was baptised, this creating some difficulties, as, for instance, when it was some time before a small Plymouth brother could find a Pl3Tnouth sister to adopt him. Illegitimate children are not barred. Once an infant was adopted by a bachelor with a motherly housekeeper, and exschool teachers are said to make excellent mothers. Girls are preferred to boys.- four or five of the former being placed out as compared to one of the latter. Some of these children have been selected by overseas visitors, about whom, of course, as well as regards other would-ebe parents, mo6t careful inquiries are made, there being also some months of trial. It is a rule of the association never to give out a child to a home inferior to that which it would have occupied had its circumstances been better. Apart for this, however, not all are adopted by rich people. There are some cases even when a woman will add to her adopted family as the years go on, and in one case a lady adopted twins because the association did not wish to separate them.