AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S CONFERENCE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 335, 23 October 1908, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN WOMEN'S CONFERENCE.

Congresses are much in evidence at .the moment (says the " Sydney Morning Herald"). This week has seen women from Victoria and beyond it busying themselves in whole-hearted fashion over the public discussion of questions relating to many phases of home life. The National Council of Women pursues its way with no blare of trumpets. Investigation proves its influence in all the important social reform movements of the last half dozen years. The council consists of delegates from all the societies that make for the betterment of things in general. It represents organisations differing widely in their points of view. Associates work with the delegates, and when any public question affecting women is brought forward the-council proceeds to deal "with it. On behalf /of children , the council has already done yeoman service. It started tho battlo for free kindergarten, children's courts and municipal playgrounds; and, thanks to it, a pure milk supply, promises to become something more than a myth. For the last half dozen years it has worked for th' 6 proper classification and the proper housing of the prisoner beforo trial. That'genial army of .mortals , that treats gaol in an airy' fashion, as something that fails to concern it, has' no conception of the horrors of the old lockup—the sheds-where young- girls wero locked up with .hardened old reprobate, drunkards, and the woman who had been driven to steal food for her children was left in company with the niost degraded. Ventilation and light were practically non-existent, and tho imperative need for police matrons was ignored. As a natural consequence the girl or womaii who found her way to the lookup was almost doomed. The council took up the cause' of an almost defenceless class, and to-day sees a now and satisfactory building on the high road to completion at tho conference.