The Press. THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1895. THE "NEW WOMAN " IN SOCIAL REFORM.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 8992, 3 January 1895, Page 4

The Press. THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1895. THE "NEW WOMAN " IN SOCIAL REFORM.

There are some evils in our midst which it is admittedly very difficult to care. It may be hard to say what is the precise remedy which should be applied, but it is not nearly so difficult to determine when the means adopted are absolutely wrong and likely to bring about farther evil instead of good. We have no hesitation in Baying that a pl aa which is being pursued by certain women social reformers in Christchurch is thoroughly bad in itself, and that it has not the remotest chance of doing any good, but that on the contrary it is bound to result in the degradation of those who lend themselves to snch dubious methods, and in intensifying the evil which they avowedly desire to remove. When self-denying, pure-minded women set themselves to raising up their fallen sisters, we honour aud reverence their Christian charity, and we cannot, but admire the self-sacrificing spirit which leads them to undertake work at once so painful and so hard. There are women in fhristchurch engaged in such noble labours, and there is probably not a single soul in the community who does not honour them for their efforts and cordially wish them success. Such a mission undoubtedly comes within woman's sphere, and such an exercise of religion and charity blesses both the recipient aud thegiver. This is the old-fashioned method, which has shed a lustre on the name of woman in the past, and given her one of the strongest claims on our love and reverence. _,---

There is, however, a New Woman in social reform, as well as in politics and dreas, and the New Woman has fonnd out what she conceives to bo a more excellent way. The New Woman is nothing if not aggressive. To seek to lift up a fallen sister by words of loving persuasion is, we presume, thought to be too Boft and effeminate. The aim of the New Woman is not so much to raise her own sex as to terrorise man. Accordingly two or three doubtless wellmeaning and respectable, bub terribly misguided, women of this type have set themselves the debasing task of prowling about playing the spy in our Streets at midnight. They take up their stations in the neighbourhood of houses supposed to be of questionable repute, iv order that they may ferret out for themselves the immorality which walks obsceue in- the darkness, and above all, thab they act the sj;y upon the frequenters of such places. Notebook in hand, they crouch in street corners, compiling their unsavoury list. What they intend to do with the names we are nob in a position to state with absolute certainly, but there are rumours that in at least one case they have made use of their information to injure a Christchurch young man with his employers. It is also said that they band, the names over to the police, although what the latter are expected to do in the matter we are at a loss to imagine.

Now this is the sorb' of thing against which we emphatically lift up our voice. We say it is a disgrace to these women if they continue in this odious employment, and it will be a disgrace to us as a community if it is tolerated. We have no sympathy with the class of men against whom these efforts profess to be directed. Bub is it certain, or even probable, thab they alone will suffer ? Is the reputation of the whole of the male community to be at the mercy of a band of hysterical, morbid-minded females, with their imagination constantly set on one subject, and therefore likely to be widely astray in their facts as well as in their inferences ? la it not at least probable that they will make mistakes either in tbe character of the houses around which they hover, or at auy rate in the identity of the men ou '■ whom they play the spy ? Supposei some respectable man falls a victim to the mistaken eyosighb and prurient tittle-tattle of these prying persons, what is his remedy 1 Clearly he" has none thab is likely to serve him in good stead. It is difficult to understand the attitude of mind of jhese self-constituted spies. How do they reconoile their own arrogant, and, we will add, unwomanly conduct with the high standards of the Christian religion? What reason have they for imagining' thab the canse of morality is likely to be served by adopting the occupations, of the informer - and . the sneak ? They will certainly find no countenance for their conduct in the example of the Master they profess to follow, whose gentie admonition, " Go, and sin no more," is in strange contrast to the methods of the New Woma_ Bub we protest against such practices on other grounds. We say such debasiqg espionage is Bare to bring discredit on the body with which it is associated. Not only will the general sympathy be alienated from the cause of social reform, but such tactics wiil cause the very name to stink in the nostrils of the community. Apart from this such ignoble practices are degrading to womanhood as a whole, and cannot fail to have a terribly debasing effect upon those who engage in them. For the sake of their own decency abd respectability, to use no higher term, we hope thac the misguided persons to whom we have referred will in future seek some loftier method of social reform.