PRUSSIA'S WOMEN

Clutha Leader, Volume XLII, Issue 90, 19 May 1916, Page 8

PRUSSIA'S WOMEN

AN AMERICAN OPINION. One of the greatest evils of the Prussian system is its treatment of women. In his ncciith-published "Prussian Memories'' .Mr Poultney Bigelow writes: The word Home, as we understand it in the Engiisli-*pf ak'ng world, does not exist in Prussia, hut in its place are innumerable rcritaurants and beergardens; and where we ask a friend to our family circle the German takes him to a Stam.mtisch or c!ub-tablo, where amid the clatter of dishes and beermugs the Teuton Icurns those manners which make him proverbial as a .social unit. Young men and even children' of the better classes are apt to see more of the gregarious pothouse life than of the home with sisters and parents. A little of it goes a long way to one who is tint by nature Bohemian; and a de-cently-bred student of the Englishspeaking world soon sickens of a society where waitresses and chambermaids are handled with more freedom than fastidiousness, and where even women of social positions are regarded as a man's chattel. I have known' German students to weep in reciting verses of Heine or Goethe, stand up through long AVagnerian operas in ecstasy of worship, and soon afterwards gorge themselves with a sausage and beer, resting now and then to raphsodise on a themo of Kultur or pass a ribald joke with a biermadchen. When first I engaged a German governess for my children I was surprised to learn that half her ■meagre earnings were to be deducted and .sent by me to her brother, a young officer in the army; but she told me this was a universal custom, and she did her -.share in the matter as cheerfully as though it was the case of a crippled sister rather than a hulking giant abundantly capabY of supporting not merely himself, but a family into the bargain. I was pointed out some years ago several smart shopgirls ami waitresses who had achieved the. distinction of maintaining each a student at the university, the understanding being thai, they werv to be legally married as soon as he had passed professoinal examination's. The number of students and unmarried officers and officials who keep a mistress to do their cooking, washing, and scrubbing, in other words, to whom the common slavey is a servant for the whole circle of his appetites, is appallingly large, if I may credit the statements of economists and the initiated. Yet this does not preelud ■ an exhibition of sentimentality in hojieymooneis that would cause police interference were it exercised in our community. In short the Prussian, whose patron saint is Queen' Lou : se. is a land of paradox in the matter of home life; and only those who have spent many vicar* of intimacy there realise the difficulties ot forming a final opinion—although what I have myself experienced causes me to recommend the author of "Elizabeth and her German- Garden" as altogether the most kindly critic in this dangerously delicate matter.