TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 10215, 10 December 1898, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

> The London WomMrs 1 , Work for tute has s jusb pnb--lh^|;-{^ r j Women., little "Dictionary, of 'J^glpj^f?:.| meats Open to Won-e-^s^jfT nee for such a book is not immediately;sjKj|t: : ' parent, for women have made auci anvM*l| vance towards equality of. occupation y?^mY. men that it would surely have 5 to sum up the employments {vrfiich ' closed to them. ' A leaflet' would'-h|o& 1 answered the purpose. The range, i ' in the dictionary, is very wide. I It.tttf^j|;.•, I apparently from barge women fo"phwS^^-i: I logist, but these [ > regarded as truly representing the..opj^«p§:' ; , poles of women's work., ' There we w<W«|||.i r who do harder physical-work than the M . wpman-**the nail, and lock-maker* ■o^#fE;,i , Midlands, the field labourers of.Dors^|p|g/|| j Wilts, to quote only one or two caae»r*s^^^^ there are certamly professions, which 8 ! more oi a woman's brains than i logy. Among the odd tioned is that' of the fire-goya, a I Christian woman who mends the'-sj||sßgfj Jjßwa upon their Sabbath day, at 2d is also to be found in the of employments. It may ' certainly, but it cannot be ' as a means of earning Ira-ad' and ';)&f|ff§ll * The poet, as we are occasionally r€D3U 1 is born, not made, and it is well i she is born with a golden spoon i mouth, she wiU never get one in. an jK|!sf|S > way. The occupation of "Author"-------b gestively enough, next tothat of >• Lunatic Asylum." That way lies °!^^^fi sometimes, it is true, yet there . hopes of the female author thaa^|^^9 , poetess. The world is very particular- f^jf!(i|||| ! its poetry, btvt its fiction i—anybody^i^^^a ■> write it. So long as the John. J%jjP_«_j Winters' of to-day. can boast of' ; &^ff!^B published their hundred n ? ve '* some profit, one must thi_fe:^l^^B they would not do it—there is a ?^l_iiH for the woman noveMst. The D^f^^^B * also mentions the occupation of 1 has this in its favour, that of all 'tyji^mssßm pursuits' it is (the oldest. Age M£|g__g| ' spoiled it, and it is still fairly P,°JNl||lll ' in spite of certain busy-bodies w^'l_^^B 1 declared it to be synonymous with v^^_^H^^ ' a term more strictly -applicable.:^i^^^Hj r . "other hajf' of the wife, at ail 1 the early portion..of their ao^^^J^^^H ' There is some reason to fear that '^|_l|ili§M 1 laxity of iome of the newer I * Mnil^^^^_S

pfttions has diverted attention from that- of matrimony, but no very great . harm has been done yet, and the pursuit of the well-beloved is still a favourite recreation with both sexes. We notice, by the way, that the Dictionary does not, as in most cases, give particulars of the wages and hours of wede in this profession, nor of the necessary qualilica^ons—as we Bitid before it is a small book. But it does give a lot of advice which has been construed into instruction in the art of getting into debt at a husband's expense. Wherefore husbands, if they wish to be armed at all points, ought to buy this book at the first opportunity, and keep it locked up. Oxe of the most practical Village methods yet devised for imIndustries. proving the condition of the rural dwellers in England and Ireland is the revival of the village industries which is now going on all over the country. As yet the movement has not progressed far beyond the experimental stage, nut where it has been capably directed such success has been attained as to warrant great Lopes for the future. Fifty years ago there were many flourishing industries carried on in English villages which are now performed ] in towns by the aid of machinery. Lacemaking, glove-making, stocking-making; spinning, basket-making, and many other handicrafts have been swept into the maelstrom of the cities, and with them have gone many of the workers, until the depopulation of the villages has become a social evil, while the lot of those who remained in the country, dependent on farm labour for a livelihood, has steadily deteriorated. With the disap- | pearance of these once flourisliing crafts has also gone, to a very large extent, the personal interest of the worker in his or her task, while the general superiority of the handmade article over the product of the factory is so obvious that it need be no more than mentioned. It is gratifying, therefore, to learn that village industries are again coming to the front as employment for country folk. At Langdale and Keswick a large number of j the inliabitants are linen and silk weavers, and the product of their looms cannot be surpassed for workmanship and beauty. At Keswick, also, "repousse" hollow-ware is made, and sells well. The Buskin tweeds, mode in the Isle of Man, are extraordinarily durable, are warm and yet light, and are woven in beautiful shades, besides which they can be sold as cheaply as manufactured \loth of the same quality. At Haslemere, in Surrey, the weaving industry has been reestablished. A well-known artist and his wife design patterns of a beautiful, original, but simple design, and these are woven into linens of all colours and textures by the village girls, who are intensely proud of their work. In another Surrey village a particular kind of rough green pottery is produced successfully. Pillow-lace-making has been revived in several districts, jam-making is carried on in many villages, basket-making is an established industry in the West of Ireland, spinning and embroidery at Windermere, and cabinet-making at Killarney. These are only a few of the more recently established village industries- which are already paying well, and which, as their numbers increase and trade strengthens, may, •it is hoped, go some way to restore prosperity to many an agricultural village, and .obviate the breaking-up of family life which the necessity of thrusting out the boys and girls to earn their own living elsewhere now compels. ' There was to be sold in John Wesley's London last month a Letters. bundle of old letters which would have a particular interest for the members of the . Methodist persuasion, for they were written by the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. Unfortunately they deal with the most unpleasant feature of that great man's life. They were written to his wife between the years 1751 and 1778, and they tell the story of conjugal unhapplness in a home which should, by rights, have been a shining example to the flock. Many people know pro- ( bablv that the Wesley# found marriage to be a bitter failure; possibly it is not so well known that Wesley at length decided he could no longer live with his wife, and so separated from .her. At first the union promised to be one of great happiness to both. "Oh, how can we praise God enough for making us helpsmeet for each other!" wrote Wesley in 1751. "I am utterly astonished at His goodness." A goqd many husbands have at some time talked and written in nmch the same strain, regardless of what ajwllusiomnent Pate might have in store for .them, It was not long delayed in Wesley's Seven years later he was writing to Juswifo upbradding her for her "unkind and unjust accusations," and declaring that she raged and fretted and called him names because he insisted on "choosing his own company- ' Twenty years on, and matters had necome much more serious. In one letter 7* v Wesle y ref erring to his wife having left hun without his consent and knowledge, to his having received, her back again, and to her having again left him. He not unnaturally expresses surprise that she should wwh to return to him again, and apparently discourages her from doing so by asking if she will make reparation, if she will cease blazoning abroad his faults, real or supposed, thereby putting a sword into the hands of his enemies. Still later he declares that if «he were to live a thousand years she could not undo the mischief that she had done, and that untd she had done all she could to- ; *«ds it he must bid her farewell. It has been said that in this correspond -. Weslev showed himself wilhng to forgive, but unable tojorgetj to our mind tAe willingness to forgive is not so very arjarent. We are reminded that in The Cause these letters we only get Wes- • of the ley's side of the case, and that Trouble, the elect of the earth are not always the most easy people f hve with. But it appears evident that Mrs Wesley chose to consider ? herself neglected, that she "had a mind of her as the phrase goes, and a sharp tongue wherewith to express it. It is easy to believe that she magnified her husband's faults, real and imaginary, and that her habit of talking about them in the presence of others created a certain amount of scandal. It is also probable that to a lady of somewhat jealous disposition Wesley's intense ardour as a reformer gave cause fcr offence. He may not actually have become indifferent to her, but the energy he threw into his work can have, left him little time to play the devoted husband. He travelled incessantly throughout the land, and his frequent atid prolonged absences from home may have given his wife food for her suspicious imagination. Few men there have been whose heart was more profoundly set on higher things, but his wife does not appear to have «een matters in quite the same light. He seems, indeed, to have sunk the husband in the preacher, in the great evangelist whose power is more widespread to-day than ever, and Mrs Wesley ate her heart out at home, vexed With unjust suspicions, and torn by jealous doubts. She may have tried the "suaviter in modo" system to win back the husband of her early married life; she certainly adopted the "fortater in re," for more than once she tore his hair, and Southey declares she was one of

the* "throo bad wives," the other two being Xantippe and the wife of Job. This is probably exaggerated, but she certainly was not the sort of wife one would like to be able to;associate with the memory of so great a man as John Wesley. In selecting poisons as the subPoisons, ject of his presidential address to the British Pharmaceutical Society, Sir J. Crichton Browne made choice of a branch of knowledge which to the average lay mind presents only two departments worthy of comment. These are the use of poisons as a means of taking life, and their use in medicine as a means of saving it. Strictly speaking, these are all to which Sir i Crichton Browne referred, and the latter was dealt with in a manner which showed that even on so gloomy and prosaic a subject as poisons there are possibilities for the exer- : cisc of imagination. In alluding to the use of poisons by murderers and suicides, Sir Crichton Browne said that, notwithstanding the discovery of new poisons, which, when : taken into the body, could defy detection, j even under a most minute post-mortem examination, homicides still clung to the old-fashioned and clumsy methods of human I destruction. Even medical men, when they developed murderous instincts, did not use the new and powerful organic poisons, but! contented themselves with employing inorganic drugs, which were easy of detection, j and were scheduled in the pharmacopoeia. I A connoisseur of poisons could, by keeping I his own microbes, slaughter hundreds of innocent people without the slightest fear of his crime coming to light. After this, it is quite gratifying to learn that, in the lee- i turer's opinion, for a long time to come murderers will continue to stake their necks on such old methods as arsenic and strychnine poisoning. Considering the possibilities if they renounced their present methods, this is indeed a lucky thing for society. For it appears that several new poisons are yearly being added to the list, and many of them are impossible to track and identify. But the greater part of the address was devoted to consideration of tho future of toxicology, of the poisons of diseases • which are coming into increasingly common use as remedies and preventives of the diseases themselves. "Step by step," he said, "armed with our anti-toxins,«and our serums, and our lymphs, we are encroaching on the ghoul-haunted regions of disease, and bringing hope and healing where all before was darkness and despair." It was probable that all the infectious diseases would bef ore long be brought under more or less control. If the assertions of various scientists were proved to be correct, anti-toxins might yet be used to check the spread of insanity, to combat sunstroke, and even restrain the course of cancer. Holding such views, it The Gospel was only to be expected that of Sir Crichton Browne Immunisation, would have a word to say about the "faddists" who object to vaccination. Smallpox, he said, was the grand instance of the protracted immunity conferred by inoculation, the mild attack produced by v_ccination protecting completely for seven years, and two such mild attacks giving "life-long freedom from the major malady." In cholera and typhoid fever prophylactic inoculations had been used, with encouraging success. As to how far immunisation may yet go not even so great an expert as Sir Crichton Browne cared to predict, but jriving rem to his imagination he said we could conceive of a time when a course of. immunisation would be as compulsory for every child as was one of. education, and the child would emerge "proof for life against small pox, tubercu-; losis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping; cough, measles, and all the zymotics that do so easily beset us." In those days a man , who has to go to West Africa, or the West Indies, or Brazil, or anywhere where yellow fever, or plague, or cholera, are endemic, will simply go to his doctor and be inocu- j lated against whatever particular disease he would have mo-treasonto fear. That may j not be the exact .medical way of putting it,! but it is what the process would amount to, and when such a state of things is reached the world will be a pleasanter place to live in than it is now.