AMONG OURSELVES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 4, 6 January 1931, Page 10

AMONG OURSELVES.

(By CONSTANCE CLYDE.)

TWO FAMOUS WOMEN DEAD. The death has taken placo recently of Miss Katherine Brereton, who many years ago was thanked for her medical work in the concentration camps of the Boer War, and who indeed did some service in reconciling Boer and Briton. She was also a firm feminist, refusing to assist her own Conservative member when she found him unsound on the question. Recently also has died Miss A. M. Cole, known as "the friend of horses." For many years she worked hard to stop the traffic of worn-out animals to Belgium, there to suffer terribly instead of meeting with' a kindly death. She was instrumental in having erected a humane abattoir, and her death occurred just when a bill to help her crusade was being considered. "I am sure the work will go on," were almost her last words. For this work of hers a memorial is to be erected. She is so much identified with this crusade that few remember how Mies Cole was in Belgium during the war, and was at one time imprisoned on a chargo of secretly helping the Allies, narrowly escaping the penalty of Edith Cavell.

MRS. INGE ON MARRIAGE. The gloomy Dean is evidently a more cheerful person at home than abroad, for his wifo not only takes a serene view on wedlock, but has lately published a book, "The Secret of My Successful Marriage." She strongly advocates intellectual unions, and mentions one custom in her family, tho habit of reading together for half an hour at least in the early morning. Yet she is no advocate of overmuch wifely devotion. "There are few greater wrongs a woman can do her husband than refuse to accept some sacrifice that he desires to make for her." She hints that the acceptance is often. difficult, and that the wife must,often console herself by reflecting that her turn will come. This is all very idealistic, and reminds us somewhat of Gladstone's explanation of his own happy marriage. "Whenever I want my own way, she gives in, and whenever she want's herS, I give in." The critic who listened dared not add that what, ho wanted to know was what happened when both wanted their own way. A brilliant woman, Diana de Poiters, declared once that a wise woman always insisted on her husband or her lover having a life of his own, happiness that had nothing to do with herself, also is the creed of Mrs. Inge. Dean Inge himself has revolutionary ideas on marriage. He has proposed* that this contract should be of two kinds, a marriage in which lifelong vows are taken, and another in which there is a limited contract for those -who do not recognise lifelong fidelity. * p

WOMEN ATHLETES. British women have often been chosen to coach their more backward European sisters in certain forms of physical culture, but in the sport of javelin and discus throwing, the German young woman is said to be the superior. One of them, Fraulein Martel. Jacob, a Berlin High School girl, is to visit England in 1031 as, a tutor in several women's athletic clubs. This results from the defeat of the, English team in Prague some months ago 'when competing in these somewhat unusual arts. "Our girls lack the technique of discus 1 and javelin throwing," said the leader of the team, Mrs. Cornell. To women it would seem as if aviation were oftener an affair of athletics tjian is the case with men.. Certainly 3\lrs. Victor Bruce found.it so when she was forced to land on an Eastern desert, when she sought to placate the natives by souuding her alarm clock many times. Her story is that she* also da'need and sang to them "for hours," until several of them travelled 40 miles to get her aid; Probably the simple desert folk were alarmed on her account rather than cheered on/ thcil* own by such cavortings. Aviation in £#ny case meant for the intrepid lady much walking and mounatin climbing, and, more than once, an encounter with brigands.

SOME NOTED WOMEN. For the first time in its history, the University College of Wales, Aberystwitliy has granted its two scholarships to women. One was gained by Miss Muriel Joliffe, M.A., who was engaged in research work dealing with the economic consequences of the reorganisation in Austria, while the second was won by Dr. Margaret Metcalfe, who intends to continue her entomological studies, for which she gained her degree of Doctor of Philosophy. An interesting woman at the moment is Mrs.' Higginbotham, -deputy-chairman of the

Libraries Committee in Stalybridge (Eng.), who wants to know why the eight women's names of the twenty-two applicants for the librarianship were deleted. The board confessed that it had erred in not stating "males only" in the advertisement, but Mrs. Higginbotham seemed to think that the error was of another kind. The board then made the excuse that "in a library frequented by men, someone stronger than a woman was needed," which looks as if the Stalybridge student® were of a somewhat quarrelsome class. As a rule, allusion is made to the "responsible work of the library, quite unsuited to a woman," but the feminists continue to believe that if a woman has the qualification, she should have the position. ; *

THE ILLEGITIMACY QUESTION. There is still continuing a perhaps not very edifying controversy in the English feminist magazines concerning the "courage" of those few women who follow the rule of "The Woman tvtio Did." I am afraid there is more logic in the | contention of St. John Ervine, the playwright, who questions the goodness of. a woman who deliberately handicaps her child, than in the argument of the feminist Miss Veraßrittain that'the stigma on extra-wedlock birth is in any case dying out. So long as marriage continues, those known to have .been born outside will suffer a handicap greater or less according to the success with which they cultivate an otherwise'undesirable rebel complex. Miss Brittain instances one of the previous Labour Cabinet who, legitimacy was, at least, doubtful. His career wtfs not hindered, and he was even fond of boasting concerning his foundling origin. Here, however, she comes upon a curious paradox in the modern mind. That mind is, as it were, anxious to anticipate the new age, it does not want to despise thfe nameless, it is therefore quite willing to give the benefit of the doubt in all cases, and to rcceive as many as possible into the conventional enclosure. Nevertheless, when the illegitimacy i«3 without doubt, there is a strong tendency to dislike and to exclude.