TWO REFORMERS IN SYDNEY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10879, 20 September 1913, Page 2

TWO REFORMERS IN SYDNEY.

("The Sun.")

" Hygiene and the Modern Drama " was the titlo of a lecture delivered at the Town Hall, Sydney, recently by Miss Margaret Hodgo before tho Health Society of New South Wales. Dr Davidson was in the chair Mlbs Hodgo opened her subject by reading a passage from Bernard Shaw's introduction to his plays, in which ho asserts that tho average Englishman is quite oblivious of his duties as a citizon. Sho then pointed out that the very fact that Shaw, Ibsen, Brieux, and mahy others had written plays treating of contemporary social evils was a proof that tho public conscience was awakened to tho interest aroused in theso matters. " Tho drama's laws tho drama's patrons givo," said Pope, and only the few who gloried in the titlo of " unacted dramatist" could afford to refuse to 6upply what tho theatro-going portion of tho community demanded. Miss Hodgo treated on social questions that had ben brought before the public in modern drama. The housing of tho poor and tho terrible evils of overcrowding—evils then not confined to tho cities of the Old World, as tho recent epidomio in Sydney had revcalod to us. ' Shaw's play of "Widowers' Houses" drew a most realistic picture of tho slum landlord and his cringing agent. He showed, too, how utterly demoralising any connection, direct or indirect, was with an undertaking that brought in largo profits with tho minimum of work and trouble to the investor. She next touched upon tho dangerous trades and the miserable wages received both by men arid women lor long hours of unpleasant, monotonous, and distasteful work, showing instances of. this, from Shaw's plays. : . ; THE HATED REFORMER. Tho carelessness of the municipal ' governments and tho apathy and cupidity of tho ordinary ratepayer wer.o. well shown up in " Pillars of Society" and the "Enemy of tho ; Pepplo "by Ibsen. Miss Hodge point- : c 4 out that every social reformer must expect to make enemies, as half tho world resented any disturbance of tho established order of things. Tho terrible effect of drunkenness and immorality upon posterity was tho next theme upon which she touched, finding in Ibsen's " Ghosts " and Brieux's plays " Maternity " _ and " Damaged Goods " very realistic presentations of the truth that the sine of the fathers are visited upon the children. Sho quoted Frau Alving's saying, " We aro so pitifully afraid of the light." Sho concluded her address by pointing out that the great hope for the future lay in the fact that theso evils were now openly discussed, and no woman could plead ignorance of them as an excuse for apathy. Mrs Browning, writing in the middle of the nineteenth century, said: "It is because prosperous and happy women aro ignorant of these things that poor and miserable women have to suffer them." The most poisonous genn, it was said, could not survive the effect of intense light, and the glare of publicity would destroy the germs of moral evil. The reformer, however, would always be in the minority, and generally unpopular, as Lowell said Slaves are they who cannot be In tho right with two or three. Miss Newcomb then spoko on the " Multiplication of the Unfit." She pictured vividly the homes of the poor in London and the terrible effect of the enforced absence of the mother, who was often the bread-winner of the family. Sho touched upon the maternity grant in the Insurance Act, which should more accurately be called the paternity grant, as it was given to the enfranchised father instead of to the voteless mother. She spoke of the causes which conduced to mental de-; ficiehcy in the children, 'prominent among these being drunkenness and immorality in the parents. She described most vividly the happiness _of the mentally defective children during their school years under the care of a' wise,loving, and sympathetic _ teacher,; and contrasted with this with their absolute helplessness and utter incapacity when sent out into the world at the age of sixteen. Sho insisted on the necessity for the segregation'of the'sexes of these mentally unfit, and that this segregation should bo lifelongj so that the .problems of dealing with vast numbers_ of these unhappy creatures should be limited to this generation. She spoke of the contentment and cheeriness of feeble-minded girls , and boys working under proper superintendence in homes, and contrasted this with, the degradation and misery of those who were sent out to battle with life, and who ended by swelling the ranks of the prostitutes and the criminals. The unsatisfactory nature of the Bill to deal with the mentally deficient thet was at present being considered by the British Parliament was next expounded. Finally, she pleaded that in this new country lessons might well be learnt from tho experiences of older countries, and that New South_ Wales in taking a hand in the training of the unfit should be prepared to consider not merely the years of formal education in the schools but the whole lives of these boys and girls, who from the very nature of their defects must always be wholly dependent upon the influence of their environment.