THE TURKISH WOMEN.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 117, 15 May 1909, Page 3

THE TURKISH WOMEN.

I was at one time very friendly in Paris with Ahmed Riza Pasha, President of the first Turkish Parliament. He was most interested in the feminist movement, and during several years was a member of the "Ligue dv droit dcs femmes," of which I was the president (says a writer in the Sydney Morning Herald). He attended very regularly our monthly meetings, and took part in the discussions. His sister fled from Turkey through many dangers, and at lastjoined him in Paris in 1900, the year of the great exhibition. I remember one of her first walks in the street. I came back with her from the. ' 'Congress de la Condition et dcs droits femmes," where she had delivered a short address in perfect French, for she spoke our language fluently, as do all women of good society in Turkey. She walked in short paces, and as slowly as a baby two years old. I asked her if she was ill or indisposed, she said, "No, but I have never walked, and cannot go any quicker." She learned by degrees, and when she came to visit me in the country she could take a long walk with us all. Later on she was able to rush after the omnibus and trams just like a Parisian, for though she and her brother belonged to a rich family, they received very little money from home, and then only with the greatest difficulties and dangers on the part of their relatives, so that, accustomed though they were to great Oriental luxury, they had to live in very modest rooms in the "Quartier Latin."

We may imagine what it must be for these women to be back in Constantinople, where they are not allowed to appear in the streets, where they can never get exercise. They are