A DAY WITH A LADY GUIDE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 35, 30 August 1890, Page 16

A DAY WITH A LADY GUIDE.

A CHATTY description of a day with a lady guide appears in the Pall Mall Gazette. This day began with the scenes of the Whitechapel murders, and ended with a visit to the Royal Academy, and a very exhausting performance it was for ordinary mortals. But the lady guide, by temperament and inurement to her vocation, appeared to be equal to work much more severe, and during the whole period of her engagement was cheerful and sensible, avoiding the assumption of airs herself and not remarking them in others. When at Whitechapel she remarked, ‘ It’s only one woman in a hundred thousand who would do what I am doing —no; not if you gave them £40,000.’ The association, she stated, is in an excellent position. It does good indirectly by enabling some of its members to get positions as governesses, secretaries, and housekeepers ; and there are some women who like the work, and stick to it. Fourteen are regularly employed on the stall', and others obtain casual employment, the guide who was employed on this occasion—a ‘ brisk little woman, with twinkling feet and kind blue eyes ’ —said she liked the work, ami was glad to have something to do, and she added that half the wickedness of the world, in her belief, comes from idleness. All ladies, however, do not find the business of guide congenial. Some give it up on account of fatigue, and others from reasons of pride. A lady who had shown a party round the Crystal Palace, and afterwards met them at a friend’s house, retired humiliated from the profession of guide. The list of the day’s expenses will not alarm people who know London :—Guide, 8s 6d ; lunch, 3s 3d ; tip to man at People’s Palace, Is ; fares to People’s Palace, 2s 3d ; entrance to Academy, 2s ; catalogue, 6d ; tea, Is—total, 18s 6d.