THEHEN HAVE GONE TO AMERICA SO WOMEN RUN TO TOWN.

Northland Age, Volume 2, Issue 49, 10 July 1906, Page 8

THEHEN HAVE GONE TO AMERICA SO WOMEN RUN TO TOWN.

The true No Man's Land is Rank Herlein, the romantically beautiful little village of Southern Austria which has long been celebrated for the fountain in its public square, flowing with health-giving waters, which have been known for centuries. Its seclusion has not hindered an occasional tourist travelling the unbeaten tracks of rural Europe from searching out its picturesque beauty and peaceful annals. Rank Herlein is now practically manless. Paradoxically speaking, its ship of state is maimed by women, at bench and bar, in church and counting-house. The bona-fide men are in America. Tennyson's Princess is transcended in the hard-fact prose of every-day reality, and the prehistoric state of womankind as the head of her family and horde has recurred by the revolutions of history in the twentieth century,. VILLAGE PATRIARCH SUPERSEDED. The village patriarch has been superseded by the village matriarch, and family names promise to be transmitted through the maternal patronymic. The change has been gradual. The more enterprising young 'men began emigrating to America 20 or 30 N years ago. The town offered little to those who were enterprising, and the burning of a large pottery factory, the mainstay of local industry, gave an especial impetus to the exodus in the latter part of the last century, leaving a- real gap in the masculine contingent of the population. ■ As the factory has never been rebuilt, the gap remains. Lads merely remain long enough to get togetner funds to taKo them over the water or to make any arrangements with tho transportation companies to become one of a gang imported by American capital, until at last any masculine ambitions entertained in the place were focussed in the trip to America, and during tho last few years masculinity seems almost extinct.

GRADUALLY ASSUME GOVERN MENT.

The older men in the meantime were dying off, the weaklings were not to be reckoned with, and the women were acquiring the habit of looking well after the ways, not only of their households, but of the petty affairs of their deserted village, the little shops and markets, the raising of produce, and its disposal, and by natural developments, as the vacancies occurred or occasion required, in the local government. As in, the household of Montaigne, who set forth that business was not the legitimate concern of erudite manhood, and was glad that"women do delight in managing affairs," so that he could safely relenquish to his wife the planting and reaping of the crops, the oversight of his masons, the negotiating of bargains for him, the collection of debts due him, and the keeping of his accounts while he, as one of his countrymen remarked, "dawdled through Italy at his leisure."

So that, although in some respects these women are some of the last of their sex whom any woman suffragist would elect to show forth tho executive and gubernatorial gifts of womankind, although their ideas on State affairs tally with the oldfashioned picturesque Marguerite dress they affect, when their last lord had dawdled off to America, forsaken femininity was not without equipment for the conditions which obtained.

When they gather in the town meeting these good mothers in council do not distinguish themselves in their deliberations with any flourish of parliamentary law. It is quite their habit to bring their knitting and mending along with them to their little convocations and mingle debates on public matters with discussions as to the number of eggs their hens have been laying, the ailments of their children, a little backdoor gossip, and other such cosy and homely matters. The "question" is rarely, if over, put formally before the ‘"house." and there is no vote of

"yeas" and "nays." No member ever has the floor quite to herself, and seldom does any address herself exclusively to the chair, or keep to her feet while .speaking, the subject before the house is usually tackled by each and all almost simultaneously, each rising as the spirit moves and after her first few words she is likely to sink gradually into her seat as her voice subsides into a familiar chat with her nearest neighbour, while another rises to ventilate her opinions. The decision generally goes the way of the last speaker by a sort of consent when there are no remarks of disapproval interchanged informally ; or if these are apparent the discussion proceeds in one way or another until an undercurrent of unanimity prevails. MEN TAKE SECOND PLACE. The young men seem to feel the general insignificance in the community of their lordly sex and submit to the rulings of the sisterhood as to the dictates of a higher power. They regard the weaker sex, as represented in their own town, with a respect that amounts to awe and borders on fear, and withal survey them with a peculiar pride, as if they had far outstripped the women to be found elsewhere. And not only in their own country have the Rank Herlein women found honour ; there is a growing feeling in all the vicinity that they are made of superior stuff, and the marriageable young men think it a wonderful victory if they can induce one of these fair ones to reward them with favour.