NEWS AND NOTES

Grey River Argus, 24 August 1912, Page 3

NEWS AND NOTES

. . - — *» What is believed to be the first.offer ;of a degree to women journalists hails from Barnard College—the women's i. department of Columbia University— in New York. The degree will be bachelor of letters and women and men compete for it on equal terms. According to statistics published jn an English journal recently there are at the Tokio Women's Medical School several hundred candidates for the. degree of M.D., Te Kuiti is described by the Dunedin "Star" as being a "mush-room township with a mixed .lot of residents, lawyers,, land-grabbers, commission agents, and boardinghouse keepers forming the backbone' of the population. The chief industry is said to be a peculiar kind of pigeon-plucking, consisting/of carving up iiiyori leases and disposing of the goodwill. A person inquiring for land finds himself not in a wasp's nest, but in an eagle's." !"■ If. Mr. Mqssey wants his.reforms to have a really practical turn he will apply the proportional representation plan to the Lower House and create a purely advisory second chamber, coniaining six or eight experts, including a fair proportion of. lawyers. Such an arrangement would t've New Zealand the basis of the best legislative system in the world. We are glad to know that the member for Ilutt 'intends to work towards that end. The campaign could not be in more capable hands.—" Lyttelton Times." A German report recently issued shows that the number of convictions against women criminals is very steadily on the decreasse. In. drawing attention to this fact, a German woman's paper comments on the old objection to women in industrial life—that they cannot stand the temptations of commercial life.—pointing out that this decrease in crime runs hand in hand with the enormous increase in women workers in all trades and professions. The New South Wales Minister for Railways (Mr. Cann) has (writes the. Sydney "Daily Telegraph") expressed disapproval of the Commissioner's regulation under which men employed in the service are not allowed "time off'"' to contest Parliamentary elections.. If an engine driver leaves his train standing .still while he mounts the stump and addresses i the electors, the Commissioners will put someone in his place. And even should the engine driver, through failing- to get a better billet 1" in Parliament, comeback and offer to resume work, the other man will be kept on all the same. The Commissioners refuse to. keep a man's billet open for whenever he chooses to go away electioneering. He must do one thing or the other, either go on with his work or give up the; job and chance things. 'Mr. Cann lias* promised to \, see the Commissioners about getting this rule abrogated. j