Notes for Women.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVII, Issue 13, 27 March 1912, Page 59

Notes for Women.

LADY BALLOONIST. The Royal Aero Club challenge cup, which is given for the longest aggregate distance covered by balloon in three consecutive years has fallen to a woman, Mrs. Assheton Harbord. one. of the world's most prominent aeronauts. FAME FOR A WOMAN. A new star has arisen among playwrights, and that a wotpan, and a young and charming one, we are told, whose first play, “Rutherford and Son," produced this week, has aroused every critic to admiration. The play, which is a study of “the parental machine,” has been done, the authoress explains, simply “at odl times," and Miss Sowerby has had no previous experience of stage technique. AUSTRIAN WOMEN’S ENTERPRISE. There has been organised in Austria amongst women postal clerks a trade union, which has just issued a striking table of grievances on their behalf to the Chancellor of the Austrian Post Office. Some of the reforms urged include equal rank and pay for postmistresses with postmasters, one full holiday each week, preferably Sunday, accession after thirty years’ service to the rank and title of head mistress, and eligibility after thirty-five years’ service to the official franchise. Yet another interesting body in Austria is its Union of Working Women. This has now been in successful working order for ten years, aud comprises among its membership women in such widely

Varied trades and professions as commercial, law, and private clerks, postal employees of all grades,- music teachers, factory workers, and shop assistants, and issues an ably edited weekly journal. THE WOMAN F.R.C.S. Dr. C. Mansell Moulin, as vice-presi-dent of the Royal College of Surgeons, Jias written of Miss Davies-Colley’s achievement in gaining the first diploma of F.R.C.S. ever won by a woman:— “Miss Davies-Colley has achieved a feat of which any man might be proud, and has achieved it in the

face of obstacles which no man has ever had to meet, for of the twelve great hospitals in London, eleven are closed to women. No woman may attend the clinic or follow the teaching of any surgeon at any one of the eleven great general hospitals open to both sexes as patients.’’ The eminent su'.gcon goes on to plead that women now being allowed to pay the fees of tjie College and pass its examinations, yet have no voice on its governing body, an injustice that he thinks should be remedied.

WOMAN SCHOLAR HONOURED. At a meeting of the trustees of the Beit Memorial Fellowship for Medical Research it is gratifying to note that a woman, Muss Elizabeth Thomson Fraser, has been elected to a Fellowship worth £250, and is placed high on the list of distinguished students. Miss Fraser qualified M. 8., Ch.B. in Glasgow in 1900, M.G. (Honours) in 1906, and her scientific distinctions include a long list of First-Class Honours in variqus medical subjects, as well as Honours and Bella Houston Gold Medal for M.D. degree.

.She has made a number of original contributions already to scientific medical research, and proposes to use her Fellowship grant in making an inquiry] into the value of the complement fixation test in tuberculosis as a guide th diagnosis and treatment at Die Pathological Institution at the Royal lafirmary in Glasgow. For five years Miss Fraser has beert assistant-bacteriologist to the Glasgowi Royal Infirmary, and, previous to that, was a house surgeon in the gynaecology cal wards there. J