MISS RUSSELL, FROM BOMBAY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 104, 4 May 1915, Page 9

MISS RUSSELL, FROM BOMBAY

A talk with Miss RueselK who is travelling in the interests of the Zenana Bible and Medical Mission, is a real pleasure. Miss Russell is so thoroughly conversant with her subject and gives a most interesting account of the great work going on in India. She is on» of the staff of the Queen Mary High School in Bombay, where many of the rich Parsee and Mohammedan girls are educated. Many of them are very clever .and go on and take medical and other degrees. They are not necessarily Christians, but a certain number of them when they come of age embrace Christianity, and tlien are obliged to give up their own people and all rights and property. The Mohammedans are the strict Purdah people, and the liffe of the ma rii ed Mohammedan woman is very restricted and sad. Even in the rare approach of freedom allowed them, of walking or driving, they must be in thicS veils or shut-in carriages. In the close-ly-guarded Zenanas they are guarded by eunuchs, and 'if they visit a house all males must be warned to disappear. Miss Rnssell gives a quaint account of an afternoon paity given by the wife of the Governor of Bomba-y to various Purdah ladies. All the men servants were removed, and when one little very high caste lady appeared a,t the foot of the house steps in her tightly-closed carriage, her own servants arranged right up the steps a sort o^ blue silk funnel of silk curtains and up this enclosed space the great lady ran into the house so that no coachman's eye might rest even for a moment on her figure. At the Purdah afternoons given by the wife of the Governor it is not the music of the kinematograph which most delights the little ladies, but the' permission given to inspect the dresses, hats, and jewels of tltpir hostess. The work of the mission is a v&ry important one. , There are 49 schools, 5 hospitals. 12 dispensaries. 5 training centres for orphans, two widows' houses, a brsneb service among lepers, 1 and a visitation service to 6000 Zenanas in 460 different centres. The population IS somewhere about three hundred millions, and there are 500 language*, or dialects, and Pole to Pole separations in traditions' aild habits. There are 27,000,000 of the poor little 'widows, many of them under twelve years old. and for thp rest of their days, whatever their rank, from the. wealthiest high born princess to the poorest peasant, these widows are all scorned, miserable outcasts, ill-used and treated with * greater contempt than we would show to our Worst criminals. England lor)g ago did away with "suttee" but codld not do away with age-long national traditions j and' caste laws, so that these wom«ii have had substituted for an awful death, long years of grief, hardship, and remorse, for they\are taught that they by their sins have caused the death of their husbands. The human wreckage in the Western world is in spite of religion, the slavery of the Eastern women is in the name of religion. The women of the better classes are hungering for education, are remarkably ready scholars and develop into brainy thinking women, and those who know them well realise best how well worth cultivating they' are. The Government of India is setting aside £200.000 for the building of hostels, and giving great encouragement to the work, which so far has bflly touched a fringe of tho population, and there are many millions yet in black bondage. Miss Russell hopes to interest us in New Zealand in our Indian sisters, so that as soon as opportunity occurs yre may make an effort to do something to help them. ' She spoke to the Girls' College students to-day, and on Thursday gives a lantern slide lecture at the Y.W.C.A. When she re•turns to Wellington at the end of May she intends to produce a cantata with tableaux, entitled "Indian Sisters," when thirty performers will take part in correct costumes which Miss Russell has brought with her from India. Miss Russell came from Bombay to Australia, where she has spent a year travelling and addressing hundreds of meetings, and when she leaves New Zealand it will be to go to Australia again, and so back to her work in India. In this time of war and sorrow it has been a case of "casting bread upon the waters," but there is no doubt that she will find a good result even if it should be "after many days." >