AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 14

AMONG OURSELVES.

A WEEKLY BUDGET,

(By CONSTANCE CLYDE.)

A TURKISH DANCE

It has been said that -Uustapna Kemal trained his people as wise parents do their children. First, they are taught to look after their clothes, then comes the reading and writing. Thus, he began by changing the style of their costumes, forbidding the fez and the veil; now he is forciiif the younger ones at least to stru«»»le with the new alphabet, which will "ultimately make other languages easier of acquirement to them. In regard to social amusements, the mixed dance has come, but here the Turk seems to be going through the Victorian age. This a traveller found when invited to the second anniversary of a Moslem lawyer's wedding. He expected the old Turkish reception, all men, with but a few dancing Armenian girls. He found, however, the Turkish wives of the guests, unveiled, fashionably dressed, and willing to tread the floor. He found also, however, that there were old-fashioned restrictions as regards the way of asking such a lady. Again, when he thought to indulge "in a "chat with his partner, her brother came up and took the conversation to himself. There are religious changes also that will affect the women. Pews are to be introduced into the mosques, and also music formerly forbidden. Worshippers, again, will not be required to take off their shoes when they enter the place of worship. THE WOMAN TAXI DRIVER.

We can remember how a woman was denied the right to act as bus conductor in Xew Zealand. In England the woman taxL driver may exist, but, so far, only four women passed the necessary examinations, and these held their posts only for a short time. The '"Manchester Guardian," however, seems nervous in case there should be an influx of such women, for it instances the extra screen accommodation, which has been sanctioned lately for London taxi cab drivers, as constituting a temptation. It was suggested that potential feminine taxi drivers had been hitherto kept back by several disadvantages, first the effect of bad weather on their complexions, the "language" of the male drivers on the ranks, and also by the long waits that are necessitated. The long waiting objection is considered especially amusing by women, many of whom in the humbler walks of life, are certainly not unaccustomed to acting Patience on a monument. The out patients department in hospitals is mentioned in especial by these women, for, of course, it is mother, very naturally, who conveys members of the family to that place where so much time is consumed. Some scientist has discovered that women don't weep as much as formerly, but perhaps her powers of waiting are taxed almost as much as ever.

MINER'S WIVES. The return of a Labour party to power in England directs attention once mure to the state of affairs in Welsh mining districts, a state which is compared to the famine of India. An observer has noticed that, however, emaciated the parents are, the children often look well fed and even well clothed, for even the father insists that the little they possess shall go to them. Fuel cannot be bought, and the wives may be observed washing the clothes in the snow. However, in sonig cases, the miners are allowed to hire shallow workings on the hillside, where coal outcrops occur, and from these they go to their homes with sacks of coal on their backs. Many in power advocate, not emigration, but the building of other industries in the district, which the miner will not readily leave, because elsewhere he does not get a job, losing also his "dole." The Rural Industries Bureau has received a grant to establish quilt-making for miners' wives, and the wife of one Durham ex-miner has written saying she could earn two pounds five a week, this being all that was received by the family, in which there were two invalids. NORWAY'S NEW FREEDOM.

It has often been said that women, at heart, are materialists, and when we consider how much our freedom is due to material conditions, perhaps there is reason for this. It was said twenty years ago, for instance, that women owed more to the bicycle than to the vote, and certain it is "that what liberates her from drudgery must help to take a better place in the world. In Norway the women, in spite of having possessed the franchise many years, still lead lives of long toil. Nature gives little in that land, as one writer has put it, while at the same time the man worker must receive more, therefore the housewife woman has been of importance, which is good, but she has had to pay for that importance by much, servile toil, which is bad. The result has been that, though for many years, the sex has been enfranchised, only three women have «ver sat in the Storking (Parliament), while there is said to be only one practicing woman woman lawyer in the country, discouragement being a woman's portion if she attempts other professions. Now, however, there is a change. Nature' niggardly in some ways, has been good to Norway in at least one, her many waterfalls have been harnessed, and electricity at a flat rate, which allows of every latitude, is literally "running the home." Lighting, cooking and heating are thus supplied to the poorest, and when we remember that houses have to be heated for eight months in Norway, we can realise the benefit of this. The advantages are far greater than they would be in any other land. As yet, the change has scarcely had time to turn the women's minds to public affairs—they are in the transition stage, but many pleasant pictures are drawn of the Norwegian woman now free to indulge her talents for art and literature— the rest will follow.