WOMEN IN PRINT.

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 49, 26 February 1917, Page 9

WOMEN IN PRINT.

The committee in charge of the Prize Bag Day has every reason to be pleased and satisfied with the gifts promised by various firms and friends, as well as solid cash which has been given. Owing to the generosity of these donors, the "surprises" will include an order for a beautiful suit of clqthes, a costume, and various other desirable goods. An oak palm stand has been given, alsoaß.B.K. jewellery, sums of money from £1 downwards, andVeach and every bag will contain something of value. All those providing bags, whether filled or empty, are asked to send them to Messrs. Harcourt's building on or before Wednesday.

Mrs. Kercher and Mrs. Fox will be in charge of the Red Cross shop, Wood-ward-street, on Wednesday.

Mjss Eraser and Miss Skerrett will be the hostesses at the Sydney^treet Soldiers' p'lub on Friday next.

Mr. and Mrs. Dinwiddis (Hawkes Bay) are staying at Balmoral.

The. Red Cross g-jrden party given at Mrs. Paul's house at Karaka Bay last Saturday was well patronised and very successful. There were fortune-tellers, Aunt Sally, and. other side-slvqws, and the stalls of work, produce, and surprise packets were all excellently provided. "Among those in charge were Mesdames Henderson, Fuller, Alexander, Duff, the Seatoun' Ladies' Sewing Guild, and Misses Brodie, Paul, and other friends.

Not much information has reached here from Italy, so the following from an exchange will be interesting : "An English lady writing from Rome to relatives in New Zealand says:—: "Everything is frightfully dear here, and the taxes are heavy, so that it is really difficult to make both ends meet —even with the strictest economy. Eggs, sugar, and milk are ■ difficult to, get sometimes. In. fact, eggs fail entirely occasionally, and sugar- is doled put to ope an p.unce at a finie. There is really no reason for all this scarcity, but there are always the middlemen, who make enormous profits by holding back their stores. Where money is the object there is little or no patriotism."

Lady Demean, wife of a former Gover-nor-General of Australia,. is a woman of much foresight. Just about a year ago she was urging all English householders who possessed a piece of land attached to their dwelling to put up fowlhouses and keep fowls, -says a Melbourne writer. Her Ladyship, as a matter of fact, wanted to urge everybody into the engineering of a national egg-laying competition. Londoners, of course,'would be barred from taking part because, unless they kept the fowls on the roof ,or in the basement, there is no other place in the average London house that a hen may roost on its perch and put its head under its wing. Whether this fowl-keeping ide?- ever caught on or npt I do npt know, but in view of the present-day outlook in Great Britain Lady Penman's idea, was bedrock common-sense. The retail price of eggs in London to-day is 4jd each. Onq of the most widely ordered dishes on the lunch menu of London tearooms is eggs on toast. One egg pn toast now costs 63d, iind two runs' the price up to lid. Lucky indeed are those thinking people who acted upon. Lady Denman's advice and inaugurated fowl runs ill the'backyard. One wonders how many 'have done so, for, it is v a very human failing to applaud good "advice yet fail to act up to it.

An afternoon party has been planned by Mrs. G. W. Russell (president) and the members of the Women's Honorary Division of. the W.N.R., to entertain the mothers of our spldiers and sailors? It will take place in the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall on Wednesday afternoon, and will be a very pleasant occasion. This is undoubtedly a '.move in tlie right direction, as it will give the members of the W.N.R. an opportunity of getting to know the mothers personally. In other partis of the world periodical reunions of wives, and mothers take place, and. ithose who are in any difficulty or suffering from loneliness have a chance of making reliable friends, who are ready and willing to give help or advice. From small' beginnings 'great, works sometimes ensue, and it is to be. jioped that this beginning on the part of the W-N.R, will lead to a steady chain of communication between, the families of soldiers and the Reserve and. other helpers.

Two thousand barmaids have baen registered in. Melbourne by Mr. H. M. Murphy (Secretary for Labpur), under the proyisiqns of ithe Licensing; Act passed m.December (says an exchange). Several requests for' certificates which were received have not yet been dealt with, as the applicants, have not supplied full particulars, or are absent in other States.' Certificartes were refused in Borne instances, because the applicants had not, been employed in , Victorian hot-els for three months in the year 1916. In one case the barmaid had gone to another State for the benefit of her health, and had been employed in a la,rge city hot-el. One applicant, the daughter- of a former hotel'keeper, and seemingly a highly cultured woman, desired to obtain a certificate, as, owing to the war, her husband's employment had fallen off, and she wished, if necessary, to supplement the household income ( by taking a barmaid's pesit-ion. She was told that, she \f?& disqualified, (is sh,e had np.t been, working behind the bar for three months last year. Officers of the Factories Department, summing up theirimpressions of the registrations, said that ba-rmaids who applied for regjgtration were ';' very like other business girls who- sold food and wearing apparel across the shop counters."-

Farmers seem to have been fairly generous in giving holidays to their women workers (says a writer from London), as one frequently sees, on the arm of a smart girl in a restauranjt or theatre the khaki badge with its purple lettering. These girls are none the worse, and most of them say .they are far better for the hard work. The open air and early hours, despite, rain and snow and slset, seem to suit them. At a Christinas party two young people were sitting on a- sofa some way from the others. The man was an Australian soldier. The girl an Australian working on a 'farm in Wales. Said someone, "Those two are having a nice little time talking nonsense "; hut the younger brother of the girl said, "No, they're not. Ida is telling him liow they ' hog ' the mangles; she's been at it for a week, imd he's been asking her how she manages the tractor, and if she can put it right when it goes wrong, and she can," added the boy, proud of a sister who could look pretty and girlish in her evening dress, ami who yet was going back to corduroys, farm boots, and overalls, an the foLlo'.ring day to do man's work for the country-

The engagement is announced of Miss Myrtle M'Laughlin, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. M'LaughJin, of Bidwillstreet,. Wellington, to Air. H. S. Powell, of Reikorangi, Waikanae, son of Mr. and Mrs. T. S. Powell, of Douro-avenue, Wellington South. \

A Young Workers' Patriotic Guild has been established in Australia, where each child belonging to the guild who, by personal exertions, earns £1 is awarded a certificate. All kinds of odd work has been done, wood chopped, leeches gathered for hospitals, rags and bottles collected, fowl houses built cows milked, brooms made, etc. Just the same kind of work has been done in New Zealand, in addition to the Red Cross help, and garments for the poor, and perhaps if the work could be organised under a guild and some arrangements made to recognise good work by a. certificate it would, be an extra encouragement, as well as the satisfaction which, all patriotic efforts bring to the porkers. '" <

An account is given in an exchange of Mrs. J. Nicholls, J.P., of Adelaide, who has the distinction of being the first woman justice of the peace in Australia. Mrs. Nicholls, says the writer, is an elderly, lady of kindly,, shrewd tempera* meat. She confessed that the granting of honorary justiceships to women has so far.proved a hollow compliment. South Australia, justices are appointed for the whole State, not for districts as they are in Victoria. This, at first, sounds very imposing, But Mrs. Nicholls states that in actual operation, it means that the whole world is their parish, but nevertheless they lack a living. If they enter z. court and send their cards up to the presiding magis : tvate, it is dependent upon his good graces or momentary whim whether he will invite- them to sit with him on the bench or not, and as a. matter of fact the woman J.P-'s have rarely b?ert in" vited to do so. There have been ten women selected for this honour, one of them, a Salvation Army officer, was removed to Melbourne a fortnight ago, and thus there were nine. Mr?. Nicholls states that the women police are doing very fine work indeed. Three of them were selected from among the probation officers of the children'^ courts, and they naturally were well fittecj for their- task.. They have done mu,eh good woyk in sending young girls away from camps, in watching them at night and giving friendly counsel. As a result of recent enquiries here, I have elicited the statement from several who should be well informed that policewomen would be needed solely for the sake of the adolescent girl. The girl child is very seldom in trouble. Nine months elapsed recently without, the arrest of a single girl for the children's courts in Melbourne proper, and in. the suburbs it is a : rare thing for a girl to be on trial. It is the girl in her teens who gete in the ha : bifc of being in the streets at night that constitutes the problem here. If you ask why is this so, the same baffling answer is given with monotonous frequency :—"Lack of parental control." Une speaker said it.seemed to him that many parents of the human specie 6 were like the lower animals in their treatment of their offspring. When they are helpless the parents are exceedingly kind and ready to sacrifice themselves for their little ones, but by and bye they feel they have done enough and can't be .bothered 'any-longer with them. It was a simile that had its comical aspect, for most of us have seen domestic animals and birds attack their discarded young when they wished to return to the parental nest,-and have prided ourselves upon our superiority in that respect!