COUNTESS' MISSION.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13658, 29 July 1908, Page 7

COUNTESS' MISSION.

A STRIKING STORY;.

An extremely distinguished, bub none the less delightfully gracious and ■unassuming, personality is that of Thersea, Dowager Countess of Shrewsbury, who has just received the official thanks of the Board of the Lambeth Board of Guard ians on the completion of thirty years work among the Lambeth poor. For some years the premiere countess of the English peerage, Lady Shrewsbury has been one of the best known figures in society ever since, as the beautiful Miss Cockerell, she married the late - earl, in the far away 'fifties. She is the mother of Lady Londonderry, Lady Gwendolin Little, and Muriel *Lady Hemsley, and the grandmother of Mrs. Gervase Beckett and Lady Ilchester. With a thousand social claims upon her time and interest,' the poor of London have yet no more sympathetic and untiring friend. In her quiet way, Lady Shrewsbury has done inestimable good, above all, of course, in connection with the Lambeth Board of Guardians, who have recently showntheir. recognition of the fact. Characteristically enough, she herself confessed, in a talk with a "Daily Chronicle" representative, that she could not understand why this sudden public discovery of her labour of love should have happened. ':I have done nothing great," she averred, "I hare just tried to help others

a little, that is all. And what else could one do?'"

In spite of her modesty about it, one could not talk long with Lady Shrewsbury of her thirty years as a Lambeth visitor without learning something of the pluck, the patience, the energy and the selfsacriiice that lay behind. WISDOM OF THE OSTRICH "Certainly," said she 'it was a very different thing for a woman like myself to do anything in the way of public work thirty years ago. In my young days, of course,' any woman who came forward to help her fellow-creatures was looked upon as self-assertive and unwomanly. It was the Victorian attitude that the well-brought-up woman should cultivate a conscious ignorance of poverty and of vice, or, at least, pretend to disbelieve in their existence. I am afraid it was the wisdom of the ostrich.

" Then came the great change. Partly, perhaps, .Dickens was the inspiring spirit, partly Charles Kingsley; but the great event that proved for ever the necessity of woman's work in helping the suffering was the sending of Florence Nightingale tb the Crimea. I remember well the outcry at the time. There were people who thought it almost disgraceful. But my father believed in it all through. You see, .1 was brought up from the first in an atmosphere of broad-minded sympathy. My husband and myself, when he was a. young Guardsman, was a pioneer in the housing of the poor, and built some dwellings for artisans in the Strand, Ingestre Buildings they were called, but I am afraid they are gone now. ".Well, as regards the Lambeth Board of Guardians, the difference is that whereas we women used to have to ask to be allowed to help and visit our poorer sisters, we are now invited and —as you see —even thanked. I think it was Bishop Wilkinson who first suggested to me what a, deal might be dene, especially in the case of poor fallen girls, by private, personal, and, above all, feminine sympathy. " Anyhow in the thirty years that I have visited the Lambeth Workhouse it has been a constant amazement to me how much good may be . accomplished in this . personal w-ay. You see there is a terrible temptation for a girl who has gone wrong, to lose heart- altogether. She is ostracised by her sex in a way no man can understand. It means very, very much that some woman who knows the world, and has a good heart*, should assure her that she is not utterly hopeless, and that she can regain her dignity and self-respect. WOMEN'S WORK. "Naturally, this is an assurance that only a woman can give—-and perhaps a certain social pcsuUon lends weight. But it must be done privately and personally. These poor girls are very sensitive, and feel official help as a. sort of a stigma. After all, when God helps, He does not publish the figures. I might say, by the way, that of late years' tho Salvation Army have done an immense deal in the same direction as that of work at Lambeth. They have done it in the right way, and with splendid results." , So far as the guardians' work hi general is concerned, it was .pleasant to learn, in spite of recent scandals, that Lady Shrewsbury finds alike the organisation of the official tone of work-house life immensely improved during her thirty years experience. No one, as it happens, need be offended at this avowal, for there is not vc single member of Lady Shrewsbury's original board left! Taking a broader outlook, Lady. Shrewsbury is more than ever hopeful- of the life* of the London poor, for whom brightness at leaSi is cheaper than ever it was in the old Victorian days. "It is not for me," she said, "to argue about the rights and wrongs of institutions. lam just a lit.le old woman—a great-grand-mother now —and, taking things as they are, have only tried to do what good I could in -places where a woman's heart and a woman's work were necessary.

None the less, Lady Shrewsbury is. by no means out of sympathy with the. democratic trend of the day, and the Suffragists have in her a kindly, if a candid, friend. "There is very much to bo said on their side," she said, "and I know they mean well. Perhaps, however, it is one of the characteristics of the time that some of the younger generation—and I fear not only of the younger generation—seem inclined to get/ out of hand and beyond themselves. I daresay we, who were trained under a stricter discipline, a>nd taught not to hit our mothers, had our faults too. So time brings abuot its revenges !" ■

An extraordinary incident which occurred in connection with the recent floods is reported from the Taieii. When the waters subsided Mr William Kirkland, of Elmgrove Farm, East Taieri, missed one or two of his cows from the paddock where they had been tied up; later, when he was able to make a careful count, lie found there were altogether six missing. He diligently searched the farm arid the river banks, but finally, still marvelling on their strange disappearance, he, gave his cows np for. lost. The other day one of the farm .'hands was cutting a piece out of a straw stack, and his knife suddenly struck some hard substance. Further investigation showed this to be a cow. The astonished fann hand removed the front of the stack, and, firmly embedded inside, lie discovered the six animals. The animals, when they struggled out, were lean and shaky, and were, for a time, quite blind. One had been eight days in the stack, two seven days, and three six days. It seems that pigs had made an opening in one side of the stack, which had allowed the first cow -to get in. The others, at intervals, followed her, possibly being driven in by inclement weather, and then by some means were inv prirroned and unable to force, a way out. Shiee their release the cows are rapidly, recovering their wonted state of health, Woods Great Peppermint Cum , for Conghs and Colds never faili. Is 6d and 2* 6d. ...