NOTES FOR WOMEN.

Southland Times, Issue 17383, 30 June 1913, Page 6

NOTES FOR WOMEN.

(Prom Our Lady* Correspondent). LONDON, May S. WOMEN AND ACCOUNTS. We have, as a sex, turned our passion for spring-cleaning to some account in the past few progressive years and swept away many a cobweb of prejudice concerning ourselves and sometimes, indirectly, the fault of ourselves, but it is an extraordinary thing that there are still numbers of us who cherish the most vague and entirely unsatisfactory notions on the correct keeping of accounts. This, one has no hesitation in saying, is the fault of men, under whose wicked smiling guidance we’ve unconsciously drunk in. that old myth that finance (which is really a very simple concern properly attacked) is solely a man's business, till we have come to think of talk of stocks and shares and even of day-books, lodgers, double entry and what not, as dull and mysterious to us though possibly clear as daylight and fascinating to the superior masculine brain. Just as well consider spelling a special masculine attainment! But it’s had its effect, this long.long habit on the part of women of muddling along with what they’ve considered simplified patents of their own in bookkeeping, with the base knowledge at the back of their heads jfhat the good man could always be wheedled into setting dark things right at a crisis. And very naturally the dear man has been conspicuously silent when he might have pointed things out less egotistically! Since simple and efficient book-keep-ing is thoroughly simple when approached simply and with no ridiculous notions of its difficulties it certainly ought to be as generally studied by girls as music or French. Lady Esher, who was responsible for the organising of classes in sick-room nursing for society women, some months ago, has been responsible also for a movement in London to instruct business girls in personal finance where they are taught the intricacies of cash book, journal, petty cash, stamp books, ledgers, etc., as well as the keeping of house, tradesmen’s, garden accounts and others. WOMEN AVIATORS. Something of the interest women take in the sport can be gauged by the record that no fewer than 24 went for flights at the Hendon Hying ground on Sunday of this week. A GIRLS’ CLUB SCHOLARSHIP. The Ladies' Home Journal of Philadelphia. probably one of the most powerful women’s magazines in the world, has, in connection with its girls’ club, instituted an interesting scholarship scheme by which it proposes to educate a young Chinese girl as a physician to her own sex in her own country at the Union Medical College for Women at Pekin. WOMEN CHURCHWARDENS. There are no fewer than seventeen women churchwardens in the county of Sussex alone. NOVEL WOMEN’S POSTS. Not always are women somewhat mistrusted in the realms of finance. In Bavaria there are two women factory inspectors who rank as assessors and are called on to adjudicate in cases of accidents to workpeople and fix the amount of compensation. THE “FRIENDS OF THE POOR” is a society that does an immense deal of good in London, though it is one of many craft that set out on the troublous sea that seeks to diminish and abolish class distinctions. It begins its mission by banding togegthcr the more fortunate ones of this world, not necessarily to give money, but, whenever possible, personal service to others less fortunate, visiting sick and sorry ones in their homos, helping others to emigrate, giving advice and, generally, making life more pleasant for those hitherto blessed with few friends. WOMEN COLONISTS. Germany’s interest in colonisation is well known and it is not altogether surprising, therefore, to hear of the extraordinary success that has attended a women's school of home farming that has attached to it one for specially training women for farm life in the colonies. This was started, as a private institution, at Wcilbach only a year ago. but sprung into such well deserved fame, that the State has now taken it over and handsomely augmented its funds, and, so. Us opportunities of work. There are now four such schools in Germany and at them women not only train for work themselves, but to take posts as teachers of agriculture, country domestic science, etc., and they gain even a working knowledge of veterinary surgery. SURELY WOMEN’S CONCERNS! It is interesting, in view of the many things that were said last Tuesday night in the House of Commons, before it rejected the latest hill for giving a vote to women —the many old old things that surely, to sensible ears, can never have semed anything hut flat and silly and unduly frightened at what is only a bogey of opposition politicians’ own invention, the bogey of "What Might Happen if Women had a Vot«”—

to note the number of hills that were up for discussion this month and last alone in which surely women's voices ought to tie heard. Apart from the Franchise Bill and the notorious Cat and Mouse Bill there is, for instance, the Cottage Homes for Aged Persons’ Bill, a Divorce Bill, two Government Bills, dealing with the edementary education of defective and epileptic children, and the employment of children; two private hills, for the housing of the working classes, Mr Joseph King’s Illegitimacy and Maternity Bill, a bill for the admission of women to the legal profession, a Mental Deficiency Bill, a Nurses’ Registration Bill, a bill for the Repeal of the Vaccination Acts!