Women—Beasts of Burden

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 13, 29 December 1928, Page 7

Women—Beasts of Burden

Travel in Portugal

English M.P.’s Impression

We found that to reach Oporto we have to travel fifteen miles from Leixoes, which, to me at least, seemed one of the most gruesome, poverty-stricken spots on God’s earth th|t I have ever sampled. And the maids? Ye gods, the maids! To forget them would be impossible. God help them! The sight of the women, old and young, at their work, makes a man not only blush for his own sex, but declaim vigorously against the conditions he witnesses. So writes Mr. James Sexton, M.P., for the Liverpool “Weekly Post.”

LOADS A MULE WILL JIB AT. Picture to yourselves, if you can, women carrying on their heads loads against which the ordinary mule would kick. As a matter of fact, I witnessed one myself jibbing .'against what appeared to be a lighter load than one woman who stood looking on was herself carrying. Picture to yourselves, you dainty flappers at home, women and girls, all of them tramping barefoot along the primitive rough roads where teams of oxen find it extremely difficult to draw their loads! These women are haggard at 30, for despite the health-giving sea. board, they dwell in slums as bad as, if not. worse than, those in our crowded cities, in a state of semi-barbarity, except that, with all their faults, they don't bob their hair and show any leg above the bare ankle. , Everything in Leixoes, in fact, is on the primitive scale, except for the few motor cars reserved exclusively for the tourist who can afford the luxury to transport him a few miles away from the not too salubrious atmosphere of the not too fresh fish, which seems to be the sqle industry of the small colony, to the charming, but striking contrast of the real Oporto.

LISBON AND THE REVOLUTION

In this respect the revolution (after the manner of revolutions) does not Seem to have changed things much for the better.

Even in the beautiful city of Lisbon, set on its seven hills, with its magnificent squares resplendent in semi-tropical flora, aye, even in the magnificent gateway where King Carlos and his son, the Crown Piince Luiz Phillipe, Were so foully njurdered, we witnessed bare-footed women bearing their burdens, and we were beset by the beggars, who importune one at every turn, but who, in spite of their hard lot, still cling to the long skirt and hair, instead of the more fashionable styles of our

more modern civilisation, which seems to have somehow missed Portugal altogether And in this respect at least the advantage from the point of view of modesty seems to be with Portugal. This may be part of the country’s primitiveness, of course; but one thing is noticeable that, with the exception of luxury motor cars which seem to have reached the very end of the earth, there is no motor traction or power used in industrial transport whatever, as far as one could see, all this being done by mules.

One very remarkable, and in some respects pleasing, result of the revolution is represented by the Royal Palace at Cintra. For though the revolutionaries dethroned the King, they seem to have the good taste merely to keep this particular palace—the Royal Family lived for the greater part of the year in Lisbon—as a memento instead of a habitation, even of an official character, unlike their prototypes in Russia. The tragedy, however, is the King’s palace in Lisbon itself. Here, quartered in its somewhat dilapidated revolutionary-wrecked buildings, are troops of the republic, whose regimental predecessors, no doubt, contributed to the original dilapidation; for though it was generally accepted that the revolution which did not immediately follow the assassination of King Carlop was relatively bloodless, the King's palace in the city at least bears evidence- to a vigorous resistance.

I was somewhat at a loss to know why the palace was allowed to remain in this state—though I am informed by those who visited the palace two years ago it was then much worse—and my queries provoked an answer which was in rather bad taste: That as one good or bad turn deserves another, it was being reserved as a place of refuge for English Royalty when "the British revolution occurred.”

I could not Resist the temptation of suggest™ gto the would-be humorist that in that case it would be a wilful waste of raw material, and that every stone was doomed to natural decay.