TIMARU NEWS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21760, 17 April 1936, Page 3

TIMARU NEWS

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL Mr and Mrs R. R. Beauchamp, Tekapo, have left for their new home m Perth, Western Australia. Mrs D. Burnett, Hakataramea, is at her home in Wai-iti road. Miss Fox, Wai-iti road, has returned from a visit to Wanaka. Mrs A. Hunter-Weston, Mount John, is staying at the Grosvenor Hotel. Mr and Mrs H. C. W. Preston (Christchurch) are guests at the Grosvenor Hotel. _ Miss Mary Clifton-Mogg, Craighead School, has returned from a visit to Christchurch. , . Mr and Mrs T. Armstrong (Christchurch) are staying at the Grosvenor Hotel. Mrs G. Smith is on a visit to Wellington. . • ’ , Mrs P. O’Connor spent the Easter holidays in Invercargill. Miss M. Hopkinsori has returned from Dunedin. VISITORS TO CHRISTCHURCH

New City Hotel: Mr and Mrs N." G. Brewer, Mr and Mrs L, B. Williams, Mrs W. H. Evans, Miss R. Nell (Dunedin), Mrs R. A. Alexander (Auckland), Miss J. Halls, Miss M. English (Sydney). Miss M. L. Lindsay (Timaru), Mrs R. May, Miss B. May (Kumara). ■ Hotel Federal: Miss E. Avery, Miss E. M. Lewis (Blenheim), Mrs Coxhead, Mrs Briggs, Miss Rennie (St. Clair. Dunedin), Miss Tolerton (Morrinsville). Mrs R. Kelso (Levin), Mr and Mrs N. Fox (Christchurch). _ . Warner’s Hotel: Mrs J. McGlue (Palmerston North). Clarendon Hotel: Mrs W. S. Carter, Miss P. M. Carter, Mr J. S. Carter, and Mrs J. C. Young (Palmerston North), Mr and Mrs A. C. Nichols (Maheno), Dr. and Mrs Batchelor (Dunedin), and Mr and Mrs R. Finch (Oamaru).

UNIVERSITY WOMEN INTERESTING ADDRESSES

Last evening a meeting of the Canterbury branch of the Federation of University Women was held in the club rooms in Montreal street At the conclusion of the business Miss Marion Wilkinson and Miss Dorothy Maginness gave most interesting accounts and incidents of their travels abroad. Miss Wilkinson gave a graphic description of her visit to the Brussels exhibition in July last This wasthe culmination of the centenary celebrations of Belgian independence, and was on a gigantic scale, covering an area of more than 300 acres, including natural forest and lakes. No fewer than 25 nations were represented, the notable absences bemg Germany, Bussia, and the United States. Each nation exhibited its industries, and some of the smallei* nations made a very brave show with exhibits of their arts and crafts. . One of the gems of the exhibition was the collection of ancient art Five centuries of Brussels’ art were represented, and most European countries sent masterpieces of their finest artistic periods. There were more than 100 magnificent tapestries, some of the finest of which came from Spam. Good humour was characteristic of ST jSf of Xl £urope’ Si. bSSmS Ul Mi^s f Magfnness spoke of two holiday SS'VB&Solfin ESS one can leam more of English people in a few days than in London m several months. There the working classes from Yorkshire and Lancashire go for one week of gaiety m toe .year,and see to it that they get their moneys worth.. In contrast to this amusement the Lakes district is thronged m summer by members of the wealthier classes. At first Wmdermere disappointed her with its tame, picture-postcard prettiness. but m the winter she found it more attractive. Coniston and Ullswater. however, she found more beautiful and more rugged, and enjoyed climbing Coniston Old Man and Scapell Pike. At Keswick, the home of John Peel, relics of the huntsman are displayed in the museum. A stage coach still runs from there over the rugged Honiski pass to Buttermere, and provides a thrill for the traveller. Among those present were Mesdamea A. Kidd. F. Grigg, A H. Tocker, C. H. Peykins, H. P. Campbell, C* L. Bidgen, B. C. Penney, Shields, Simon, Misses C. M. Cruikshank, A. F. Ironside, D. Bowie, E. Plimsoll, M. Richards, R. Forbes, J. McKee, I. L. Milnes. Erna Heine Ellie Heine. M. Wilkinson, D. Maginness, E. B. Baxter, Marion Reese, and E. Flint.

DICKENS AS SOCIAL REFORMER

ADDRESS AT CANTERBURY WOMEN’S CLUB The “Round the Table” group of the Canterbury Women’s Club, held its first open meeting of the year m the club’s reception room last night, and a large number of members and their friends enjoyed the programme arranged by Miss E. A. Chaplin, director of the group. Social Reform Mr A. E. Caddick, president of the Christchurch Dickens Society, who fave an interesting address on “Charles lichens as aSocial Reformer,” pointed out that an account of the political and industrial conditions of the period in which Dickens lived was necessary to realise the elements that helped to form his character and colour his thoughts and writing. Dickens was bonrin 1812— the year of the Luddite Riots—a series of outbreaks by workers who were pledged to smash the new machinery which had reduced the number of men required in factories and had thrown them out of work. He died in 1870—the year in which the 1 Elementary Education Act was passed. The period between these events was one of change. It had been called a time of suffering, of conflict,' of expansion, and of progress. It had been an age of harsh penaLJawSfcofj; vindictive punishments. Ih the beginning of the nineteenth the law had recognised 223 capital offences. A man might be hanged for almost anything. The period, too, was an age of public executions, and it is interesting to remember that a vivid protest by Dickens to the London “Times is said to have put an end to them; The years 1812-1870 marked,’ too, great progress in the struggle for political freedom. The year 1817 saw the “March of the Blanketpers” and the rising led by a Nottingham pauper, Branjjreth, who, with two companions, was executed for his part in it. In 1819 the unfortunate “Massacre of Peterloo” tookplace in St. Peter’s field, Manchester. The first Parliamentary Reform Bill passed both houses in 1832. The year 1834 saw the new Poor Law Amendment Act, and the Abolition of Slavery in British Colonies come into force. About the same time the Chartists drew up the famous six points in “The People’s Charter,” most of which were subsequently granted by the second Reform Act of 1867. Such was the England into which Charles Dickens was born; and the facts must be remembered if the reforming zeal which underlies so much of his writing, is to be understood, said Mr Caddick. From the beginning of his career as a writer Dickens showed his instinct for social reform. Nearly every one of his books gives evidence of tmsir he was the advocate of all who suffered for the wrong in this world, and by holding up that wrong for all to see, by ridiculing its consequences, by showing its evils (at times with his own incomparable humour, at others, by his power of pathos), he exhibited the undoubted iniquities of the age in: such a way that nothing could be said in their defence. . Some of the various abuses and ills which he attacked in his books were: In “Oliver Twist” the disgraceful Poor Law administration; the fallacy and impotency of imprisonment for debt" in “Pickwick Papers,” “David Copperfield,” arid in “Little Dorrit”; the iniquity of a certain type of Yorkshire School in “Nicholas Nickleby”: the immorality of gambling in “The Old Curiosity Shop,” the disregard of a common spirit of humanity towards the poor and industrial population erally and the helpfulness of the Christian Doctrine as evidenced in the teaching of the four gospels, in his “Christmas Stories'’; slavery and the copyright law in the “American Notes’; the perilous system of ignorant Mid venal nursing in “Martin Chuzzlewit,” and wild-cat company-promoting m the same book; the law’s delays in “Bleak House,” education and industrial relationships, and the laws of marriage and divorce in “Hard Times”; Government officials and red-tape in "Little Dorrit.” Dickens lived among the poor during his earlier years, and unhappy experiences of his boyhood quickened and deepened a natural sympathy with the underdog. Out of the fullness of his heart, he did at times deliberately set himself to lighten the lives and ease the burdens of what have been called somewhat crudely, the lower classes. Dickens gave to the English novel its definitely democratic trend, its realistic and humanist elements. Ip a sense all his work was social reform. It might seem difficult tb recognise* this. at the first glance. Probably it was not actively conscious in Dickens’ own mind. He had a sense of humour and perhaps that was the secret of his success, for laughter is very close to tears, laughter had helped to kill the Sairey Gamps and their criminal incompetence in the nineteenth century said the speaker. Musical Programme ■ An enjoyable musical programme, arranged by Mrs J. W. Palk, was given as , follows:—’Cello solo. Miss Lois Simpson; songs, Mr L. Riley, and Mrs McGillivray. and pianoforte solos. Miss Jean McLeod. Mrs F, Simpson and Mrs W. Andrews were the accompaniSA vote of thanks was passed to Mr* Caddick and the performers, and supper was served by the committee