OF FEMININE INTEREST

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 103, 1 May 1926, Page 19

OF FEMININE INTEREST

FIRST WOMAN ADVOCATE

BISHOP'S ADVICE TO GIRLS

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, 10th March,

Miss Margaret Kidd, Scotland's first woman advocate, had the further honour of being the first woman to appear in wig and gown before the House of Lords. Lord Dunedin presided, and another Scottish Law Lord, Lord Shaw, was among the peers hearing the appeal. A daughter of Mr. James Kidd, M.P., for Linlithgowshire, she was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1923, when she was 23 years of age, and a month after her admission to Parliament House she received her first brief and defended a woman charged with murdering two children. Miss Kidd has had the distinction of seeing an Act of Parliament passed primarily for her bonefit. When she was' admitted to the' Faculty of Advocates she applied to become a member of the Faculty's Pension Fund. The pensions, however, wore for widows, and, as obviously Miis Kidd could not leave a widow, the Faculty promoted a Bill in the House of Commons, which was passed by Parliament last year, to provide that pensions should also be paid to the widowers of lady members of the Faculty. A pleasant incident of Miss Kidd's admission to the Faculty may be recalled. Her father's old political opponent in Linlithgow was Lord Strathclyde, then Mr. Alexander TJre. Lord Strathclyde had retired from the Bench at the time Miss Kidd was admitted, and to mark the event he refurnished his old brief-box, had Miss Kidd's initials placed upon it, and presented it to her. COCKTAILS FOR GIRLS. "Whenever you come to have a young man, and he offers you a cocktail when he takes you out to dinner, don't go with him again—choose another." This was the advice given by the Bishop of London at the Haberdashers' Aske's Girls' School, when he opened the new library given by the school governors. He was speaking to 600 girls on the subject of keeping young. He said it was the most mischievous thing in the world for boys or girls to take cocktails.- If they wanted to keep young they should not smoke or drink, but take plenty of bodily exercise. They should read to keep their minds growing, and cultivate a sympathetic, outlook towards the.cries and needs of the world. Women representing every grade of thought in social, religious, and political life packed the Central Hall, Westminster, to urge the claims of equal citizenship. Dame Milliccnt Fawcett, in a spirited defence of the modern girl, said it was a shameful anomaly that a girl of 12 could marry, while a woman could not vote until she was 30. She was asked if she was not horrified at the idea of the young girls drinking cocktails. "Well," said Dame Millicent, "I don't know what a cocktail is. I have never met a cocktail yet, and I do not know any girls who drink them. But Ido not see anything n the ,demeanour of the girls to-day to justify such harsh and cruel censure. | admire the beautiful qualities of the young ladies of to-day, the splendid work they do, and the great work they did during the war." ADOPTION MADE SAFE. The Adoption of Children Bill, which on second reading in the House of Com-, mons was carried unanimously, is an entirely fnop'party i.measure •■■> dealing with an important social subject. The Home Secretary, while giving no pledge thdt the Government would expedite the Bill in its later stages, said that they were fully satisfied that it was an experiment well worth making; and he undertook to consider any amendments that were made upstairs.

Almost every civilised country but England (one writer points out) has a law fit this kind;; whereby the full rights and responsibilities of parenthood can be transferred to adoptive parents. England has no such law; and though an increasing amount ol1 adoption is now being done here, it it safeguarded by nothing but private agreements between the natural and the adoptive parents, which cannot afford adequate security for the interests cither of the adopters or of the adopted. Adoption is particularly valuable as part of an organised endeavour to save the lives and redress the handicaps of children born out of wedlock. But it may also be a great source of happiness to married people without natural children of their own. It can undoubtedly be abUßcd; but the danger of its_ abuse is far greater to-day, when it is a matter of purely private arrangement, than' when, as under a legalised system, the State in return for giving its recognition is able to insist on its guarantees. THE "HiIOHTW MALE VOTER. The Home Secretary (Sir William Joynson-Hick*) who was-the principal speaker at the sixth annual conference of the Eastern area of the Women's Conservative and Unionist Associations at Caxton Hall, said that a new agency of stability had arrived in the political world. Prior to the admittance of women to the political vote men were getting'"flighty" in thenpolitical views. That adjective was usually applied to women, but it was not altogether true. There was more solidity, he belioved, about the women's vote than there was1 about the men is voteJ This great influx of women's votes, he, believed, was really controlling some of the constituencies, and ho thought that there was likely to bo greater solidity because the women were more interested in the great social question, in questions of home, in questions of the improvement of conditions of ithc people, and also in the question of the maintenance and protection of the great Empire than they were in mere constitutional questions. He did not know to what decision the Government would come with regard to the question of extending the franchise to women at an earlier age. That would have to be debated in the House before this Parliament was over. COST OF EDUCATION. _ At the Oxford Union, Lord Eustace Percy and Miss Linda !D. Grior (Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, and a member of the Board of Education Consultative Committee), debated tho motion "That this House condemns the policy of His Majesty's Government in regard to education as calculated to lower the standard of education, and to arrest its development." It was the second time the Oxford Union has been addressed by a woman. The first occasion was in 1910, when Mrs. Fawcott put the women's case in a debate on the suffrage question. Miss Grior said they did .not want to be assured that they were not going back in education. They wanted to be assured that they were going forward. Nor did they want to bo assured that they were riding safely at anchor in a slightly stormy sea. They wanted to be sailing forward ovor tho ocean. If economies were to be made all round, how was it that tho Admiralty was told to spend what it must and education was told to savo what it could? The reason was that in other services we had some approach to adequacy, while in education we had. none.

Lord EustAce Percy said there was no question of cutting down education,and no policy had been put before the

country which involved the cutting down of expenditure in education. Whereas tho fighting services had been cut down, in the case of education the Government had never had any' aim btit that of regulating and restricting an advance in expenditure. Votes wore: For the motion, 169; against, 208.