NOTES AND COMMENTS.

White Ribbon, Volume 1, Issue 12, 1 June 1896, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Ourselves. —We have been greatly cheered during the past month by the many kindly references to and appreciation of the White Ribbon. The New Zealand Herald says: printed on cood paper with clean type, and contains good matter.” Our business Man,\ger reports a large and encouraging increase in the number of subscribers. The following are samples of many letters recived. —Dunedin— “ The last copy of the White Ribbon is a great improvement. I hope it may prove a great success.” Trentham—- “ Will you be kind enough to put down my name as a subscriber to the White Ribbon. I hope it will meet with the support it deserves.” Palmerston Nortli —“ What an improvement in your last issue! I hope to get more subscribers.” Springfield number of the White Ribbon *vas splendid. We are in such need of a good woman’s paper that I do hope it will succeed.” Auckland—“ All who have seen your paper like it, and we hope to get more subscribers.” Letters like these are compensation for the hard work that accompanies the establishing of a woman’s paper. * Dr Kate Bushnell’s new booklet entitled “ a Clean Life ” is highly praised by Mrs Josephine Butler, Miss Willard, and Lady Henry Somerset. “A Wheel within a. Wheel, or “ How I learned to ride a bicycle,” is Miss Willard’s experience, in learning to master the steel steed. ‘ The World ♦hrough a Woman’s Eyes,” has just been published by Miss Jessie Ackerman, and is an account of her round-the-world travels. It is described as fascinating and graphic. * Miss Willard sailed for England on April 22, to be at the eighteenth annual meeting of the B.W.T.A. held in London at the end of May. Immediately afterwards Lady Henry and Miss Willard purposed taking a tour in Ireland and returning to America at the end of September.

“ 1 he Englishwoman’s Review,” in recording the fact of Mrs Lee’s appointment as official visitor to Lunatic Asylums in South Australia, is under the impression that this is the first appointment of the kind in the Colonies.

In New Zealand we have several official lady visitors to Lunatic Asylums. * C.D. Acts. —We notice that an attempt is being made by a section of the Auckland City Council to carry a recommendation to the Government to introduce a Hill on the lines of the existing Contagious Diseases Acts, to apply to both sexes, and providing for male and female inspectors to carry out its provisions. We have little fear that any serious attempt will be made in this direction, but we shall watch very keenly the proceedings of these gentlemen, who fondly imagine that the physical consequences of immorality can be evadid by legislative enactment. * One way of doing it.— Among the resolutions passed by the National Council of Women was one in favour of reforming the Upper House. Ihe recent Maori “ Parliament ” is said to have taken a practical step in this direction. When Bills were passed by the Lower House and sent up to the Lords to consider, the latter were put on one meal a day until the Bills were passed. It is stated that the popular Chamber experienced no difficulty in getting its measures expeditiously carried.

The “Song of the Shirt.— Scarce a soul New Zealand born, and familiar with Hood's lines, but has wept in heart over England’s daughters who “sew at once with a double thread a shroud as well as a shirt.’’ And yet it would seem the same tragedy is being enacted here in our own land. Four andsixpence for six days’ work —and not eight hours a day ! Such is the fact recently brought to light in Wellington. Can the purchasers of such “ bloodstained ’’ garments rest in their clothes ? Until such legislation can be enacted as shall make it impossible for a fair day’s work to be bought for less than a fair day’s wage ought not every woman to abjure the ready-made garment and personally employ a seamstress at a living wage.

Juvfnii F. Crime. Oneof the saddest features connected with the recently tried cases before our New Zealand Supreme Courts is the long list of comparatively juvenile offenders. As a consequence two problems stare us in the face and demand a speedy solution. First, how to discipline the morally diseased, so that *h e y ma y l )e reformed instead of hardened ; and second, how

to get to the root of the matter, to determine the causes, hereditary or other, that lead to the manufacture of such an undesirable and pitiable element in the comm unitv.