MISS CLEMENTINA BLACK ON QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.

White Ribbon, Volume 1, Issue 5, 1 November 1895, Page 5

MISS CLEMENTINA BLACK ON QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.

(Eitracts from an Interview by Miss Willard, in Woman'» signal.) “ What is y< ur idea, Miss Black, in tho evolution of this great social movement, of the place that the wife and the mother will hold ?” “ My feeling is that there is no form of work so valuable as that performed by the mother who brings into the world and brings up healthy and good children. While children are quite young they cannot be properly cared for without constant attention from some one. Their mother is tho natural some one, and I think few mothers of young children would choose to leave them and go to work. If any mother would choose I would not restrain her, because the choice would show that she was not fitted for their care, and it would la* better that some other woman should undertake it. The state of things which compels a mother to leave her young children uncared for in order that she may earn money for them is so far an unwholesome one. “ I do think a great many ladies go astray on the point of the economic independence of the wife; but the way to obtain that is not by making her earning it outside; the projer position is that if a man and wife are joining together to undertake this wire of children, the wife should be entitled as her right to a certain share of his income. I do not include in this ‘ incline ’ business capital, but the money devoted to the family and household. Her share should not be loss than one-third.” THE BETTER HALF. “ Why should it not bo a half ?” “ Because the children’s share is not her share ; it is for her alone.” “ But if she only shares the income, why might it not then be half ?” “ It might be half if she paid half the rent and half the current expenses. I think that is tho proper way out of the problem of independence.” * * * * • “ What do you think wo shall do with the temperance question ?” “ I believe that the real drink question is a social one. I mean that the question is one detain ined by the state of tho people.. Drunkenness is, I feel su~e, more a symptom than an evil.” “ While I share that opinion, it seems to ine that experts have been purblind on th“ subject; and what do you tiiink of tho drunkenness thr.c has characterised the world in palaces and halls of l uxury and riches ?” “ 1 think that great wealth is as much a symptom of the evil state of society as xs poverty itself. The state of the poople is wrong.'

A NF.W CURE FOR INTEMPERANCE. “You think that if socialism were hero, tho keystone would fall out of tho arch of King Alcohol ?” “ I do. I think there would be no such serious excess of drink as now. Of course at first, when people were let free, they would do things they should not; hut it would right itself. For example, the first Bank Holidays were very drunken, but they have since l>een characterised by a striking improvement. It was some twenty years ago that they were established. Drunkenness is not now conspicuous, and I think rational amusements have done much to attain this end. “ I have heard Mrs Hicks make the assertion that intemperance causes poverty, and poverty causes intemperance ; that seems to me to be a reasonable view’.” “ May I ask what you think of rational dress and the bicycle ? ” “ Personally I should not have the courage to w r ear a socalled “ Rational ” costume, but I don’t think we do as well in England, in not wearing it, as they do in France by wearing it. I believe eventually the sort of dress we shall come to w’ill be that now worn by girls in a gymnasium, and more people will look well in it than in the present dress. The real difficulty is that the skirt is unbecoming, unless it is either alove the knee or quite to the foot, also in a change of dress we are apt to think that a woman of ungraceful figure looks worse; but the kind of woman who will then look worse is the very stout lady w’ho now wears a tight waist, etc. But the truth is she looks horrid now. She must get rid of her extra tlesh ; it will not be so much accentuated, perhaps, when w<. men exercise more. As for the bicycle, I am so excessively short-sighted that I f«*el myself cut off from it, but I regard it as a public benefactor. I believe the bicycle is doing more for the independence of women than anything expressly designed to that end. It is perhaps a mark of the change of view' which has come over us, that nobody expects a woman to go cycling escorted by a chaperon, a maid, or a footman. It is an amusement —perhaps the first amusement —which woman has taken up to please herself, and not to please man, and it is one w hich can only be followed in a moderately comfortable and healthy kind of dress. It is absolutely independent, and yet not necessarily unsociable, and it involves time in the open air. Is there any other fashionable recreation for women for which all these things can be said?”