Notes for Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 3, 19 July 1911, Page 69

Notes for Women.

WOMEN "FIREMEN.'’ Burton-on Trent boasts a ladies' firebrigade. The organiser of the new departure is Aliss Gooch, a daughter of the superintendent of the Municipal Fire Brigade. Iler .idea is that girls and young women should be efficiently taught fire diill and life saving in the event of an outbreak, so that personal danger from fire might be minimised both in the work-hop and the home. Some eighteen or twenty young people responded to her call, and for some time they have utilised the borough fire station for their drill. They have mounted the escapes, sealed tail ladders, slid down shutes, run out the hose, and performed all manner of evolutions associated with the rapid extinguishing of fine and the saving of life. They’ have also been taught to quickly attach the horses to the engine, and with such alacrity and thoroughness have the ladies gone through their drill that they are shortly to give a public exhibition on the principal football and sports ground in the town.

WOMEN AND FRIENDSHIP. An excellent leader, based on a lecture given some days ago, by Madame Martelle Tinayre on the above subject, appeared recently in the ‘'Times,’’ from which the following quotations may be of interest. ‘'Women have, perhaps, a greater capacity for friendship than men; but they have not normally the same opportunities for making friends naturally or for testing them conveniently .... they have to choose their friends deliberately from the first and to make overtures of a special intimacy, where men pass almost unconsciously from the cooler to the warmer stages of friendship. So friendship is far more of an adventure to a woman than to a man.” ‘■Women of the world do not often fall into morbid excesses of disillusionment; hut women of the world are rarer than men. Women's experience of life is both narrower and more intense . . . .

’When they are unmarried and engaged in some work . . . they learn the rules of friendship as quickly as men, and often make a far more exquisite art of it.”

“They are ready with all the pretty formalities but do not demand them.” “They are the best of all friends, and prove it is only 'circumstances which make so many female friendships precarious.”

WOMEN AND MISSIONS. The Bishop of Ely brought but some interesting points in connection with mission work in China when he presided at a meeting of the S.P.G. The first improvement that should be made, Bishop Montgomery said, was that they should fill up the women’s side before they did anything more with the men, and so abolish what he called, “lop-sided missions.” He referred to the problem of finding wives for the workers in the mission field, and said that they had to allow them to marry natives, with the inevitable results. The influence of English women in the Far East was incalculable. English wives were bringing a new tone into the moral life of the great country of China. It was the duty of the Church to use her influence with the great firms out there, many of' whom were employing University and public school men, to raise the salaries of the men, so that they could marry; and the earlier the better. There were many splendid young men out there, but great temptations were put in their way. AMERICAN SUFFRAGISTS. Following the example of the suffragists in London, about 5000 American women marched through no less than five miles of New York streets on May 6. This is the first time such a march of

demonstration had taken place, and it appears to have been a great success. The suffragists displayed in their ranks doctors, lawyers, artists’ models, business women, a regiment of writers and girl reporters, actresses, etc., and a company of house-wives carrying their babies appealed to spectators not less eloquently than the pretty girl stenographers. Two chubby babies in gocarts, pushed ahead of the corps of actresses, made the biggest hit. Some 200 college women, in black silk gowns and mortar-board hats, represented women in the institutions of learning all over the country. There were plenty’ of good bands—pipers in Highland uniform, brass bands, fife bands, and bugle bands—and they’ played favourite American airs, such as “Maryland, Sweet Maryland,” “Marching Through Georgia,” and “Dixie,” Some. banners bore snappy inscriptions, for example: “New York denies the vote to 'Criminals, the insane, idiots, and women.” The marshals, clad entirely in white, rode on horseback. A WOMAN ARCHITECT. It is good news to those interested in watching what women can do in the world to hear—after the disappointing conclusions of a masculine orator at the Women’s Congress last year, that women did not take well to architecture as a profession—that there is in New York a very successful woman architect —Miss Fay Kellog. Medicine, according to an article in the “Daily Telegraph,” first claimed her attention, but while pursuing her studies she devoted much time to drawing and mathematics, with the result that when she exhibited some of her work to the authorities of the Pratt Institute they broke all records and admitted her to their architectural course. Here she not only made up two years* work in one, but acquired so much facility that now she writes her own specifications, even for the plumbing and boilers of a house.

After a period of training in an office, she made her way to Paris, where she was the pioneer who obtained entrance to the Beaux Arts Architectural course for women. At first the authorities flatly’ refused to accept her. Undaunted, she even went to the head of the institute, only’ to meet the same adamantine denial.. She quietly went on with her art studies, and was lucky enough to meet a deputy from one of the departments in the south of France. He was amused at her zeal, but cauie to see that she ; had some right on her side. -He got a law passed within ten days after her request admitting women to the course at the Beaux Arts.

Since she has been in business for herself in New York she has done much good work. She remodelled a block of live-story’ buildings in New York, and though she has a distinct reputation for bungalows, she aspires to sky scrapers. Architecture, Miss Kellog thinks, is a profession suited to women. They are naturally’ home-makers, and from their practical experience they ought to know .just what is necessary for comfort, and should be able to make the best of available space and material.

TRIUMPH FOR WOMEN. There were 400 applications from aMB for the post of superintendent of the .scattered homes in the Willesden Union, but a woman. Miss Helen Mary Roberts, of Reading, has been given the appointment. The place has up to now been occupied by men. ENGLISH LADY’S FINE FLIGHT. At Hendon late in May, Mrs. J. V. Martin made the first extensive flight by an English lady. Taking out the school Farman biplane, she was up for half aa hour, covering 12 circuits in a gusty wind at a height of from 50 to CO feet. CHINESE LADY DOCTOR. Dr. Yamei Kui, the first" Chinese woman to take a medical course and degree in the Western world, was staying in London for a few days last month, and was entertained last week by a number of lady’ doctors at the Lyceum Club. Dr. Kui is in control of t’he Government medical department for women in. North China, and is a deservedly’ famous figure in her own land. She studied medicine at the Cornell University (New York), and after obtaining her degrees, practised for a short time in Japan before taking up her present' important position in China. She has, siiree her appointment, opened a hospital at Tientsin and several dispensaries, and there trained native women as nurses. Her work in this direction has been remarkably successful, and at this moment she has left some thirty-six following-out under her assistance the course that she has laid down for them. A young Manchu lady, who has been studying for the medical profession under her, has just entered for the Johns Hopkins University course, and so great has been her influence in China that no fewer than forty-four are endeavouring to emulate her example by studying in America, while there are some thirty in London, two of whom are at the School of Tropical Medicine, where great things are expected as to their future careers.