WANTED ON THE VOYAGE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 312, 26 September 1908, Page 13

WANTED ON THE VOYAGE.

" "What shall we do with' our girls?" is n6 floubt as-, pressing u problem *in" Australia 1 as it is in England'(says an English corre-. spondent of an Australian paper). A recent step taken by the Cimard Steamship Company suggests that if every profession' on shore is over-crowded, there may yet be openings afloat. The Cunard Company has just engaged its'first woman purser. The Carmama started .'the ball rolling by promoting its • shorthand writer to the post of assistant - purser. The girl's busy chief at once found that he was relieved of half his worries. Miss Leith, the assistant purser in question, rose to the occasion nobly. Soveral other lines have signified .their intention of , following the example of'the Cunard Company, and'a new field for women workers is promised. The possibility of sipilar posts being found on the great ocean i liners is interesting. I heard some time ago of a fully-qualified but impecunious dentist who was crossing from Europe to America upon one of the crack steamships. ' Needing money, he offered to overhaul the " worries'" of some of his more opiulent fellow-passengers during the voyage. He found, there were many busy commercial men who were only too glad to seize the opportunity. Whpn at work, they were never able to spare the necessary time. In this case tho dentist had to work quietly, in case the shipping company might raise some objection to the surreptitious trading. ,Why should not the time taken by an ocean voyage be used to better purpose? If tho next forward step in transoceanic travel is the addition of a "Bond Street" to the luxuries of a modern steamship, why should not every great liner have one or two working dressmakors aboard? She would have a stock of the latest materials, and knowledge of tho latest Parisian fashions. In the case of the dressmaker, I admit, there is less probability of the saving of time proving, a potent argument. I have never yet met tho wpman who could not find tim# to get her dresses fitted.

The Lunacy Commissioners for Scotland •- have issued their annual report. In it they o discuss the influence, of excessive tea-drink-s' in" on mental disease, and arrive at the following conclusion :rrr" Excessive daily infusions, or rather decoctions, of tea may bavo an unsettling effect on' subjects mentally unstable from birth, at adolescence, or at the climacteric."