ABOUT WOMEN.

Evening Star, Issue 10055, 11 July 1896, Page 2 (Supplement)

ABOUT WOMEN.

When President Kuiger heard that women’s franchise was the law in New Zealand the news took his breath away. “ What,” he gasped, “given women votes !” Ho repeated it three times, like someone utterly dumbfounded. “ Why,” lie wound up with, “ women are no good at all.” It is not generally known that in Lady Louisa Tighe and Lady Sophia Cecil we have still with us two survivors of the famous hall given by the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels on the eve of Uie Battle of Waterloo. lu 1815 these ladies, then girls of twelve and six respectively, were present at this famous ball, Although Lady Louisa Tighe is now ninely-fourher memory of that eventful evening is as clear as ever. She tells of being near her father while her elder sisters were dancing, and she well remembers seeing the Iron Duke consulting a map. Mr Stead, in a character sketch of the Emperor of Russia, in the May number of the ‘ Review of Reviews,’ tells an interesting story of the Queen and the CV.ar and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was at the War Otiice, Her Majesty informed him one day that the Czar must be made an honorary colonel of an Eaglish regiment. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who is one of the most obliging of men, pointed out that it could not be done without great inconvenience, inasmuch as all the other crowned heads would expect to receive similar honor. Her Majesty listened patiently to tiie “non possumus” of her Secretary of War, then said: “It may be impossible, but it will have to be done all the same.” And so it came to pass that Sir Henry CampbellBannerman carried out the request of his Royal mistress, and the Czar was duly appointed to a colonelcy in the British Army. The following remarks of Lady Currie, wife of the English Ambassador at the Porte, on the life of Turkish women will be read with interest;—“l have been in the harems of two former grand Viziers, and I found the ladies very charming, speaking French, and being accomplished in many ways. In the harem of Pasha they were dressed in European costumes; but afterwards, to please me, they put on their Turkish attire. I have visited other harems; but really one is not doing a kindness to ladies by going, for the very fact of my being the wife of the British Ambassador seems to throw some kind of suspicion on them. I have been advised to go mcor/iii/n; but as I would not think of making a secret of my visits I don’t go at all. . . . There are even

emancipated Turkish ladies; and theic are some, I know, who write articles for the newspapers. Of course they feel very much humiliated at the position of their sisters. But there are other Turkish ladies perfectly satisfied with link life in the harem, and who seem to think that it is we who are not in the harems that hj ive much the wont lime of it, I have always been struck by the Sultan’s dignity and gentle manner. I believe he is parliculaily fond of bis children, especially of one little boy. I have never visited the royal harem, hi cause the Sultan has no wives. Strange as it may seem, His Majesty is probibly almost the only unmarried man in the empire.” South Australian women have advanced ahead of New Zealanders in some respects. Four women were recently elected to a hospital board, while others have been made justices of the peace.

YOUTHFUL, IMMORALITY

A paper on this subject was recently read before the Canterbury Women’s Institute by the president (Miss Bain). The ‘Press’ makes these extracts; —“ Technical classes will do much, and so will well-thought-out schemes of recreation. Young people must come together, and should be encouraged to do so in every healthful direction. As is well known, Professor Biekerton interests himself heartily in this subject. Ho has just succeeded in resuscitating the Kingsley Club under its new name of the Fellowship Gudd. This society has a promising membership, and provides mutual instruction and enjoyment for every night of the working week. Some Nelson people have engaged a suite of rooms for only £4O per annum, and amid general enthusiasm have opened them for refreshment and recreation purposes. The Technical Classes Ass°cialiouof Dunedin is producingasplendid record, in which Christchurch has not even begun to emulate her Southern sister. The Y.M.C.A. is doing good preventive work in every New Zealand town, and so are other organisations. Public opinion ij grpwjmg. It must be cultivated, so that parents shall realise their responsibilities 100 keenly to permit their children to drift out to the streets—the nursery of vice. If they prove very slow in recognising this particular duty, our municipalities may yet follow the American lead, and render it punishable for hoys and girls to wander unattended after certain hours, and for youths to purchase tobacco. Early smoking is an urn mitigated nuisance and the source of many other corruptions; and here parents are directly in fault, for it is not unusual to see a father place his pipe in the mouth of his baby hoy. He would not be so cruel if he were better informed. We want, then, far more numerous educational advantages, and far richer opportunities of recreation. In a university town, splendidly endowed and splendidly equipped for the public good, there should be a corresponding enrichment of public life. But our college exists as a thing apart, aud it is quite possible to live in Christchurch without knowing the reason of its being. Take, for instance, the lethargy which allows an expensive and presumably excellent telescope to continue —month after month —unmounted on an imposing tower. Only the other Saturday night an itinerant telescopist gathered a crowd in Cathedral souare while he gave them glimpses of the planets. It may be asserted that anyone who has beheld Jupiter glow? ing amid his moons, or Saturn rolling within his gorgeous rings, or our own satellite rearing her glistening mountains into space —anyone who has once beheld these unspeakable glories can never be utterly sordid again. His soul has been lifted to the Divine, he has been made to feel that his own humanity is divine. Is it right that such an inspiring force as our telescope—it is ours !—should remain unused ? How anomalous, too, that a sprinkling of youths and maidens should receive academic instruction, while hundreds of gifted young people and older people must go without because they cannot afford the fees ! Every night in the week could be given to the public each intellectual magnate in turn expounding his own subject The Provincial Council Chamber glooms in musty sileuce breause we are so slow in learning to use our own. What a splendid People’s Palace it would make ! If its doors were thrown open to our boys aud our girls; if music, and pictures, and brightness welcomed them within ; if —some part of every evening—science were made attractive there, the streets would claim fewer votaries, and Judge Denniston would have less juvenile depravity to denounce. Indeed, there is too much denunciation. The one thing needful is the spirit of service, the motive which prompts to the diffusion of good rather than the repression of bad, the love which thinketh no evil and therefore maketh none.”