CURRENT TOPICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIII, Issue 12157, 22 March 1900, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

THE HOUSING OF WORKING : WOMEN.

It is stated that no fewer than 15,000 educated working women aro earning their daily bread in London, and

each year their numbers increase. Of these, many, probably the majority, nin-t find cheap board and lodging, and the fact that they hare great difficulty in doing so hci; led to the formulation of a scheme for housing them on a comprehensive scale. [Something in tins direction has already been done, but, with a few limited exceptions, existing experiments leave much to be desired. The objection to many of them is that they arc too philanthropic in flavo. ur they are usually Supervised by outside

ijc&BurStfceea xii well-meaning persons, who, (wfhile TeaHy anxious to do their best, allow ithe tenants no voice in the arrangements, jhave a latent opinion that poverty shc.uld Ijie fetimble, and! look upon all complaints ias vexatious and ungrateful. The London /workirig woman, for her part, objects, above Sail things, to be patronised; she is nothing if not independent, and she criticises all jfchat is offered to her. The minimum requirements of the worker in London are supposed to be a private small, perhapis, jbut peaceful, clean, and homelike ; such service as she, busy and probably out most of fthe day, has no time onstrength to perform for herself; a healthy 'bouse; food sufficiently appetising and 1 wholesome; and an Opportunity for society and companionship. to actual statistics, a woman teaming from £7O to £IOO a year in London Will set aside about £4O for beard and lodging. The.majority of workers will need a (midday meal away from home, and, if 3s a week as allowed for that, there is left out $Df the £4O only £33 a year for room, attendance, the use of public rooms, breakfast &nd dinner, a share of light and firing, and feo on. The question that is now asked is fchether a number of the workers could not .lie got together in one large home, which jdould be made, comfortable for them and Successful from a financial point of view. JThe question promises to attract the attention of wealthy people, and the .-probability is that before long a scheme will P& working on a, much larger scale than any pi the schemes now being tried. It is urged that the workers are willing to pay a price '•Which, if properly handled, will allow for: ifche indispensable margin of profit, and that, If the homes are made attractive enough to Secure a full quota of occupants, others willj £oon be started, and when multiplication is parriedto the point of competition the gCjOd jtime of -the tenant will have arrived.

From almost all} points of the compass, railways, steamers, and telegraph lines are being pushed into the heart of Africa, and it seems hardly correct lo call it the Dark Continent any longer. fn an article recently written for a New [York newspaper, however, Sir Henry (Stanley expresses a very decided opinion jbhat 'the first decades, of the twentieth jcentury will reveal astonishing things in (Africa. He even ventures to say that the Jcontinenit remains, for most practical purposes, as little known as it was when Vicforia'Nyanza and the Congo were undisdowsred. British East Africa alone, he points out, contains two sections about jwhich we are very ignorant. One embraces fell, the region lying, between the. Jub River and Lakes Stephanie and! Esudolf. The Uhierertends from Lake Rudolf to Fashoda J jon the Hone hand, and to southern Abyssinia ] ion the other. A thorough knowledge of Jbhoffe two regions, says Sir Henry, would ithrow some light on. the main routes taken fry the. immigrants who left Abyssinia in jold times, and who, mixing with the primiffcive tribesman the south, produced-the Zulus. ' 'Another interesting region extends between LaJte Tanganika and Lake Albert tEdward. We are told that ib contains ivolcanoes and clusters of .mountain peaks ( jof great height. Very few explorers even, [touched the fringe of this region, yet a kbarough investigation of it would discover the real south-western sources of the Nile, and the eastern sources of the Congo. Sir [Henry assents ithat the tribes that inhabit jthis among the mosty' interesting [.people of Africa. Their ancestors were jcooped up in that peculiar access formed [by Lake Tanganika to trie south, the chains to the and the great,' fcjongo forest to the weslj, while the w-ar loving tribes; marching to., the south moved jpast them, apparently unheeded and unheed£g. Yet another interesting*piece of country a narrowetrip fifty.'milea wide and sev?en [hundred' miles long. It lies fight on 'the Equator, andas slight! yto the west of Lake (Albert! Edward. A systematic exploration lof this region, it is 'expected, will reveal Jthe exact line of the great upheaval which 'occurred! at .the subsidence of the vast of which Lakes Tanganika, Albert, pEdwaxd, Albert Nyanza, and Kivu form ia, part. Though several/ explorers have jcrossed this region, none./has been able to Bay how far the great forest extends, how sar the great plain readies, or how many jyolcanoes are still in operation a-lon" the igigantic mole that has'.'been piled up west,, bf the chain'of lakes.

jKEXPLORED AFRICA.

'. But there are vast tracts >f country to be explored in ither lands besides Africa. xn South America, several ■parts of west and' north-wetstem Brazil are 'las little known to the civilised world to-day jps are theidarkesfc parts of Africa. The, debatable temtoiy between Ecuador and 'south-eastern Colombia, parts of Cuzco in [Peru, and La Paz in Bolivia, the Peruvian IjAndes, the upper basin c& the Pilcomayo jliiver, and an extensive portion of Patagonia, are regions of great promise for the explorer. A large part of the Andean Cordillera is completely unknown, with regard to both/its topography and its geology. The secrets .of the plains of the Argentine, with .their renowned pampas, and of the Patajgonian.. tableland still await solution. The -'s£uai«ff of the Andean lakes is still a mystery 'and, in the opinion of Sir Henry Stanley, Ijthose who are engaged in the study of the 'ihistory of mankind will find plenty -of scope 'in itha mountains of South America. In the jcentre of the old continent of Asia, Youngjhusband, Rockhill, Littledale, and Sven [Hedin, the Norwegian, have found isomejthing new. It is expected that the Great jßiberian Railway will, be the starting-point ;ffor many explorations to the south, !&nd that that part of the Asiatic jtoontincab which lies between Lake ißaJkal and the Himalaya range will jtfurnishi the explorers with a large field [for research. Sven Hedin has made a brilj lian.fi record in traversing the heart of jlAsia, and others will doubtless follow in the near future. Tibet has l6ng withstood ithe attempts-of travellers to. penetrate it 'for the purposes of a systematic survey, but '.iLandor will probably scon be followed by 'other adventurous spirits, and by»and-bye [both Tibet and China will yield to the explorer and the scientist. Arabia and Persia ijawait the Wallins, Palgvaves, Burtons, and jiDoughties of the future, who will resurrect tthe dead past, delve among old ruins, and [revive forgotten (histories. There are many tracts in Australia still unknown, but these, Bays Sir Henry, may be safely left to the 'Australians, .who have shown themselves to. jbe peculiarly qualified in every way to solve ■all geographical questions in connection >ith their land. North of the 60th parallel of latitude lie Greenland, Baffin Land, Northern Canada, and Alaska, all of which contain large blank patches, and the vast ttea. extending over 30 degrees .of latitude, ■which lies in the Southern Hemisphere, has flso to bo explored.

TOTHER LANDS '< r iTOTEXFLOBED. (