and haunts of vice, if she has no helping hand held out to her-no home to go to, no work found for her to do. It is so much harder for a woman to reinstate herself into respectable life than for a man under like conditions. So the Prison Mission work became a branch of the Temperance work. Next came lectures among the poor. Among the chief temptations to drink, especially among women with whom "good fellowship" is not so powerful an incentive, are uncomfortable, untidy homes, insufficient diet, weak health and its consequent low spirits. Therefore the Temperance Association saw that its work inevitably led on to sanitary work; to teaching poor women how to make their homes clean and fresh and sweet-smelling, how to choose and cook their food better, and how to keep their children and themselves cleaner and healthier. This domestic sanitation really lies in the hands of women, and no teachers of hygiene can be found so persuasive or so intelligible to these poor women, as ladies who thoroughly understand these matters. So the Belfast Temperance ladies undertook to organize hygiene and sick-nursing lectures. Lastly there has come a new development of work to be done among the children. The children of the middle and upper stratum of poor classes are looked after in a measure by their parents, and have the chance, if their parents are sober and industrious, of becoming so themselves without special effort. But there is a lower and vagrant class where, if any domestic influences exist at all, they are exerted for evil; where the children cannot by possibility grow up sober and industrious, and have every chance of becoming criminals or paupers. If these children are girls, there is even a more bitter fate awaiting them. These poor little vagrants are accessible by no kind of organisation such as the Temperance Societies have usually set on foot, and they are unfortunately very numerous in the lanes and alleys of Belfast as in every other populous city. But the Belfast ladies are equal to the emergency. At their meeting last year it was proposed to establish an industrial school, if possible a certified home, for these poor little girls, and an application was made to government for the purpose. There has been delay in obtaining that grant, but mean while funds are being collected, and the ladies have already placed six little girls in healthy temporary homes, as an instalment of their more comprehensive plan. So the children will be rescued from infamy and drunkenness, and educated to useful trades, and the work of temperance will be aided more effectually by this seeming divergence from its primary object than it could be by keeping literally to the more obvious but limited course of action. It is not to be supposed that all the members of the association are equally far-seeing; some prefer the old and beaten track, and are timid and cannot be made to see the logical sequence of the work to which they have set their hands: but the main body of the association is in favour of the new venture, and we think that their example will tell very powerfully upon other Temperance Associations. At their meeting in Belfast on April 4th, two excellent papers were read containing schemes for the practical working of the future home. It was proposed that it should be in the centre of the town, so that any policeman who found himself with a forlorn little waif on his hands might know at once where to take her for advice and assistance. Such of the children as were orphans might be boarded out with sober foster-parents who were known to the association, and some might be helped out to safe and happy homes in the colonies. Thus it will be seen that the members of the Temperance Association are prepared to resolve themselves not only into a Committee for a certified Industrial Home, but into Boarding-Out and Emigration Committees as well, and an almost boundless field for energy lies before them as they have the courage and practical good sense to enter upon it. This broad and practical way of accepting and following out new paths of action appears to us particularly suitable to women-it suits their position because the means at their disposal are very various, and a lady may be able to help efficiently in one thing who would be quite powerless in other directions; it suits their training because women are generally educated to care for a diversity of subjects in order to accommodate themselves to their circumstances,-and it suits their tem perament. Whatever part women may eventually play in social and public life they will certainly not be RedTapists. Precedent has fewer charms for them than for men-they have plenty of that zeal which can break through obstacles, and a sufficiency of that perseverance which can afford to labour and to wait. Their good sense, too, teaches them to desire a practical result from their efforts, a tangible victory. So, as elsewhere in Great Britain, the Temperance ladies in Belfast have established coffee-houses, and Homes for Inebriates and Prison Missions, and perhaps this new departure may prove the beginning of a wide-spread movement among Christian women in battling against corruption and vice by a beneficent and powerful organisation of which we cannot as yet foresee the limits. ART. IV.-POOR LAW GUARDIAN ELECTION. WE have every reason to congratulate ourselves upon the result of the Poor Law Guardian Elections which are just concluded. Although a few defeats have been sustained, yet the measure of success is on the whole very gratifying, and this year sees a large addition to the number of ladies who have been empowered by the cordial vote and support of their fellow ratepayers to do effective Christian and womanly work among the poor. We have not yet received details of all the elections, though this number of the Review has been delayed three days in order to obtain them, but in large constituencies the papers take some time to count, and all the elections do not occur at the same time. The Birmingham election was the first in point of time, and the town may congratulate itself on the acquisition of two excellent ladies as guardians, Mrs. ASHFORD, and Mrs. BRACEY PERRY. Bristol has secured the services of four ladies, Miss CLIFFORD, Mrs. MANNING PRENTICE, Miss WOOLLAM, and Miss ALICE WINKWORTH; the first and last of these ladies headed the poll. Mrs. McILQUHAM has also been re-elected for Boddington without any opposition, Mrs. FIELDER for the fifth time in Abergavenny, and Mrs. SHAW by a majority of 50 in Elstree. In London, St. Pancras is again fortunate in having three ladies as guardians, for though Lady Lothian was prevented by illness from standing again, Miss Lidgett and Miss F. DAVENPORT HILL came in without a contest, and Miss ANDREWS by a majority of 14. Miss DONKIN has been re-elected for Kensington, and Miss EVINS has been returned for Plumstead. In Lambeth, Miss EVA MÜLLER and Miss FRANCES LORD were elected without a contest, and Miss WHITEHEAD subsequently. Mrs. CHARLES has been re-elected for Paddington. We have thus great cause for thankfulness, even if, which we have no cause to suppose will be the case, we do not hear of additional gains. The ladies have proved that they can do excellent work in past years, and we are certain that the new members will emulate their example. CORRESPONDENCE. 66 MY DEAR MADAM,-I have seen in Miss Hubbard's excellent periodical, Work and Leisure, a letter earnestly advocating the establishment of trained midwives for the women of the working class, who often suffer so severely from want of proper attendance at the birth of their children. I understand, also, that it is in contemplation to get an Act of Parliament to grant licenses to properly educated midwives, and, if I understand rightly, to inflict penalties on women acting as midwives without being duly qualified, as is done in several countries, France among the number. I have therefore made such enquiries as I could, and the accident of my visit here has enabled me to ascertain how the system really works in France, and I am sorry to say the poorer women have no better assistance than our own. The high pay of the trained midwife makes it impossible for the poor to obtain her assistance, and though the middle classes are helped, the labourer's wife is not. The French midwife's fee is from ten to twenty francs for each accouchement, and she can only be had in such large places as this has recently become. In smaller ones, such as this was twenty years ago, the midwife is just an unlicensed practitioner, who does like her sister in England, and helps her neighbour for what she can afford to give, which may be nothing at all, or may be a handsome present. All skilled work will always be highly paid, and it is only by the assistance of the wealthy that the poor can be effectually helped. I enquired particularly if an unlicensed midwife was not liable to punishment. "Oh yes!" said my informant, "no doubt that is the law, but who is there that would execute it? No such case has occurred.” The good woman, widow of a tradesman here, evidently thought as I do, that the law was far too iniquitous to be executed. I am satisfied that, while the establishment of trained midwives for all who need them is an excellent thing, the imposition of any penalty on the cheap, unlicensed help which the poor can really get, would be a great mistake. The trained midwife will relieve the medical man of a laborious and unsatisfactory part of his practice, and will leave him at greater leisure for cases of real illness, and women of the middle class will thankfully employ a midwife at 15s., instead of a doctor at two guineas, and the midwife will more frequently give her help gratis, in cases of poverty, than the doctor can afford to do. These French midwives go to Bordeaux to study and for examination; there a second-class diploma can be granted, but for a first-class there is no place but Paris. I think examinations in midwifery might be held in most of our county and other principal towns, and that a reward should be given, whenever a nurse passes successfully, to the medical man who has trained her. In order to make the plan useful, such large numbers of women should be trained that natural compe |
