MOTHERHOOD

Dominion, Volume 17, Issue 288, 22 August 1923, Page 2

MOTHERHOOD

THE HUNTLY BEQUEST. For the purposes of extending the Alexandra Home for AVomen. a clause in the annual Empowering Bill (known as the AVashing-up Bill) provides that the AVellington Ladies’ Christian Association fis authorised to carry out the trusts of the will of the late Dr. Edith Ara Huntley, who left the residue of her estate for the creation, maintenance and endowment of an institution for the care and treatment of expectant mothers, the promotion of research into the means of alleviating the conditions of motherhood, and the teaching and training of pupils in midwifery. AVhile the woman tram-conductor still holds her own in Paris, the woman chauffeur is not very much in evidence. It is, indeed, rather astonishing nowadays how comparatively few Frenchwomen even drive their own motors (states a writer in an English newspaper). AVhen the woman chauffeur does appear, however, she is very good indeed. Dressed neatly in a sort of uniform coat, with a peaked cap pulled down woll over her face, only little loops of hair at the side give the lie to a masculine precision. The car is usually beautifully kept, and suggests that it is hung out every morning, French fashion, with the mats. Quite apart, however, from the attraction of the car, the woman chauffeur has other advantages. She is unexpectedly careful. As a rule, taking a Paris taxi means taking your life in your hands. If it were not that many of the taxis are very small and light and the brakes' very big and strong, there would be even more casualties than are at present suffered by the patient Parisian public. Paris taxis are cheap, but it is as well to have insured your life before using them. The woman chauffeur seems to have taken a resolution to protest against reckless driving. She is unusually steady, and she does not try to make plaits with the traffic in order to indulge an instinct for speed a't all costs. She is also very polite. The taximan has improved somewhat since the war, when it was necessary to go on one’s knees, to him,, but ho still keeps the tradition of a demand that is greater than a supply, and while he takes a passenger without protest or stipulations concerning the “pourboire,” he is not particularly enthusiastic about his job. The woman chauffeur, on the other hand, is positively welcoming. She gets down to open the door and makes no fuss about luggage. Her only fault at present is that there are too foW of her, but if she keeps up her present standard, that is a fault which it would be very advantageous to her to remedy.