May 15th, 1882. deducted for it twenty, thirty, even fifty per cent., after having allowed the worsted to get moist in the cellar, thus increasing its weight when it was delivered, so that thirty-nine pounds of worsted weighed, when converted into articles, only fourteen pounds. Industrial schools were recommended, in order to educate the working women, and thus protect them against these unprincipled manufacturers. Agricultural schools were also proposed, especially as tending to afford employment which would relieve the over-filled cities. Among other occupations were mentioned silk-worm and bee-culture. For the evils resulting from the helplessness of working women under the law, when contending with unjust employers, various remedies were proposed, but chiefly the formation of associations. Others proposed the participation of women in various industries hitherto carried on by men, such as shoemaking, watchmaking, and goldsmith work. Others suggested the exertion of moral pressure by the richer classes upon employers. Mrs. Morgenstern spoke on "Cooking Schools and Folk's Kitchens." She is the founder and supporter of these. The kitchens are for the working people. Food can be given cheaper and better, because bought in wholesale. The workman is not obliged, as elsewhere, to spend money for drink. The food being nourishing, he does not feel the need of stimulus. In Berlin there are fourteen Folk's kitchens, in which from 14,000 to 20,000 persons are fed daily. Men and women eat in separate rooms. The "Housewife's Union," of which Mrs. Morgenstern has for many years been President, gives for this reason tickets for a "portion" (half a mark) in these kitchens. Other societies buy cards of admission, &c. Every kitchen has its paid womanoverseers, and a corps of volunteer ladies. The Housewife's Union at first lost about half of the £600 which it advanced, but did not let itself be deterred thereby and its finances are now secure. Reports were also read from branch associations in Stüttgart, Cassel, Heidelberg, &c. A WOMEN'S LYCEUM.-The German authoress, Frau Emma Laddey, whose rhetorical gifts are well known, May 15th, 1882. has founded a Lyceum in Munich with excellent results. She herself gives lectures on Literature, Frau Rosalie Braun on History, and C. von Braunmüller on Domestic Economy. In such a town as Munich the success of these lectures is a signal triumph for the women who wish for higher education. EMIGRATION.-An American paper gives the following description of Frau von Körber's work for the emigration of German women:-"Frau Elise von Körber, the widow of an Austrian ex-Army officer, is a kindly, elderly lady, who for many years has been actively interested in female emigration.' In six voyages from Europe to Canada and return, she studied the dangers and difficulties surrounding women on such journeys, and determined what measures ought to be taken to protect working women on emigrant ships from demoralizing influences. "Frau von Körber investigated the condition of labouring women in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. She found that a large surplus of women renders the problem of honourable self-support a most difficult one, that work is scarce and remuneration small, that the dignity of womanhood is lowered, and that thousands of women drift or are driven to disreputable modes of life. "Now to give these women an opportunity to earn an honourable living, to rescue them from a deplorable fate, and to put them where, as she says, 'there are better prospects for the accomplishment of the natural destiny of women—that of founding their own households," she proposes through an international protective emigration system to bring them to the United States and Canada. "The management of this system is to be vested in ladies' associations. "Several associations for this purpose already exist in Switzerland, one has been formed in England within the past two years, one is in active operation in Montreal, and Frau von Körber intends to organize some in Germany the coming summer, and on her return to New York next autumn, to form some in this country. In this work she has received encouragement and as May 15th, 1882. sistance from the Crown Prince of Germany, Bismarck, the Marquis of Lorne, and several well-known philanthropic German societies. "Seeing the great lack of serviceable women for households,' was what first suggested her emigration enterprise to her mind. She saw in America a demand for which there was no satisfactory supply, and in Europe a supply for which there was no demand. What could be more practical than to bring this demand and supply together? There are,' she says, 'many well educated daughters of Prussian officials who have so little in their own country that they would not disdain accepting situations as nurses, or even as house servants.' "Arriving in New York city a few weeks ago, she has already obtained the co-operation of the Women's Christian Association, the Young Women's Association, the Social Science Association and several other important organizations." ART. V.-REPORT OF THE ITALIAN COMMISSION ON WOMEN AND THE POOR LAW. THE Italian Government is occupying itself seriously with the Poor Law question. A Commission was appointed in December, 1880, composed of Signor Mazza as President, and the Deputies Berti, Boselli, Gorio, Pianciani, Solidati, Sonnino Sidney, Turella and Luchini. The Commission has now issued its report, in which it recommends, unanimously, that women should take a share in any future poor law administration. The report is a curiosity in its way, and we reproduce it for the benefit of those of our readers who are interested in the progress of this movement: Your Commission has decided unanimously to introduce such legal regulations as will clearly show that women may be called upon to take part in the administration of public beneficence. In declaring this they are not introducing an innovation. No present law excludes women from being called upon to take part in administering pious or charitable works. Jurisprudence has declared this, and moreover, it is well known that, if the law does not declare an incapacity, none exists. In fact, we see that institutions are not wanting, especially those intended for women, in which women fulfil offices of scholastic disciplinary inspection, and even take part in the actual administration, although even in female institutions, especially those of ancient foundations, the offices which require greater contact with the public are exercised by men. The commission, therefore, does not intend to make an innovation, but even if it were so, they still unanimously desire that it should be explicitly declared that women are to take a share in charitable associations. Your Commission believes that this proposal may be received without necessarily entering on the grave problem of the rights of women or their claim to participate in public life, and to exercise certain professions which the other half of the human race has reserved for itself. Neither does your Commission believe it is necessary to inquire if the real law of civilisation is that which many affirm, that the legal condition of women and her influence in social life always improve with civilisation. There are some who deny this, and maintain that the greater intelligence and power a nation possesses the greater respect it shows to woman but the less liberty it allows her. Neither is it worth while to enquire into the truth or value of the testimony of history that women have nearly always been, if not subject to man, at least removed from public life, for this testimony would only prove that the world has hitherto needed in its government the qualities predominating in men. But the world changes, though slowly: the requirements of a military state are different to the requirements of an industrial state, and the requirements of a state in which the arrangement and distribution of public beneficence have acquired great importance, differ from that where they are not so much considered. Let us leave on one side the Voconian laws,* the present-day institution of marital authority and the English legislature prior to 1870, on the condition of married women; let those justify who like the dull harangues of Cato on the Oppian law, or of Proudhon, or of Schopenhauer. Let us leave others to dispute whether Christianity has raised the moral dignity of woman, or whether the theory of her moral inferiority was introduced from the East, and was unknown to the Aryan raccs; let us leave on one side chivalry and its ideals, and the book of J. S. Mill, and the English, and still more, the American propaganda, and the modern doctrines of the mission of women and the equality of the sexes. Let us not lose the present by fishing, as Giusti says, in the past and the future, and not passing the Atlantic, nor the Channel, nor the Vistula, nor the Alps, nor taking into consideration the proposal which was approved by a Commission of the House in the preceding parliament of giving *The Voconia Lex de testamentis, by Q. Voconius Saxa, the tribune, enacted that no woman should be left heiress to an estate, and that no rich person should leave by his will more than the fourth part of his fortune to a woman. This law was abrogated by Augustus. May 15th, 1882. the vote in administrative elections to women, let us examine the question of public beneficence solely with reference to Italy and the present time. Although public institutions ought to be in harmony one with another, yet we may acknowledge that women may usefully share in the administration of public charity without necessarily being admitted to the electorate, still less to public life. The question may be judged by itself; either women, by being thus admitted will make a good experiment, and we shall be fully justified by the event and have done a service to the country, or the result will be bad, and the way to other official posts will be closed to them; or the result will be neither good nor bad, and other questions will remain without prejudice. One thing is certain, that men have not in general shown an excellent result, and this authorises us to try and find a better. It seems to your Commission that if there is any office to which naturally the female virtues and temperament are addicted, it is to charity, not only private, about which there is no question, but also public. As in domestic society, the woman generally superintends and distributes the sums destined for charity, so also in the vast family of the community, woman is naturally designed for this duty. Even past ages, so little disposed to set woman free from family life, and so unjustly accused of being wanting in charitable sentiment, understood this. At all events, Christianity understood it by the institution of the Order of Deaconesses, and by the encouragement which the first founders of the Church gave to this spirit of charity among women. The example of illustrious ladies who not only gave their goods to the poor, but shared in administering and distributing subsidies, in the care of the sick and the education of orphans, was exalted by Christian writers as eminently pleasing to God and the Church. Even the headlong spirit of charity, to which the founders and propagators of the new faith made such fervent appeals, was mainly due to women, and the Fathers of the Church, even those who alternated between warm enthusiasm and cold contempt for women, comprehended that this spirit of charity was necessary to move the world. Women, by this means, shared in the diffusion of Christianity, and felt they were a living power in the new Church, instead of remaining shut up in ascetic aspirations. It was the degeneration of this spirit, and the ambition and avarice of the clergy which arrogated to themselves the right to administrate charitable bequests and gifts. Even in the time of the Emperor Valentinian this assumption had grown to such an extent that an edict was necessary to prevent widows and rich maidens from being despoiled, and prohibited monks and ecclesiastics from visiting their houses. St. Jerome laments, not the edict, but that the clergy should deserve it. Thus the official clergy continued to consolidate their own power and limit that of women in administrating the goods of the Church, even when these had been primarily assigned for purposes of charity. After pointing out that the lay society of the present day is bound to emulate, for purposes of charity, the |