potent clerical organisation, the Report goes on to

say:

It would be unjust to ignore or deny the large and efficacious part taken by women to-day in public charity; we rarely see committees for help or societies for beneficence in which the gentle sex does not share, not only by gifts, but by work and management. In public misfortunes, in years of famine, an appeal to the cooperation of women is rarely inefficacious Children's asylums in many cities are due principally to the womanly charity which maintains and lovingly superintends and manages them.

It is true that many women are unmoved by charitable sentiments, and ambition and female vanity will largely influence them. But can any one say of men that we ought to trust entirely to their sentiment of duty, and not appeal to their ambition and their desire to preponderance. By so strictly limiting our standard we should make but small way, for few would take trouble for others if the moral sentiment of duty were not reinforced by other tendencies of human

nature.

If political life is repugnant to the female disposition because it requires a generalising spirit, a virile mind, a great acquaintance with life under all its aspects, this objection does not apply to administrative offices, those at least which do not give rise to continued contact with the public. The habitual diligence, the spirit of order, the patience, the tendency of their minds to observe minutiæ and details, are a guarantee that they could, in certain cases, succeed better than

men.

Charity, besides, is in great measure directed to succour old people no longer fit for work, invalids, blind, or incurable. Women are generally gifted with a more exquisite sense to interpret the wants of sufferers, and are more capable of comprehending the requisites of institutions designed to relieve suffering. Above all we must remember that asylums destined for children of both sexes form a large portion of all charitable institutions, and it would be absurd to deny women the post of managing these institutions.

It is not intended that the law should impose the competition of the two sexes, but only permit it. Those persons who are carrying on elections, either in the Communal Councils or of members of charitable associations, might in each case judge of the desirability of appointing women, and of the particular women who should be nominated. Whosoever wants to exclude women may exclude them, but whosoever desires their participation in this important work, if the laws are not contrary, may, if he has the right of election, call them to it. Family affections and cares are, it is true, the first duty of woman, and chiefly to be recommended to her; but for the large number who have never had a family, or who have it no longer, or cannot hope ever to possess one, such a recommendation is an ironical absurdity, justifying the entrance into religious orders for any one who feels a vocation which civil society cannot satisfy. And with regard to many ladies who have a family but are rich and at ease, society as well as the family would be the gainers by any measures

May 15th, 1882.

drawing them from their gilded saloons to think and provide for orphans, abandoned children, or, indeed, any class which suffers.

For these considerations your Commission proposes that the law should declare more clearly that women are admitted to take part in the administration of public charities, all existing statutes being observed. It desires, in one word, that incapacity shall not be founded on sex. With a Liberal Parliament like ours this suggestion suffices.

REVIEWS.

A Lady Trader in the Transvaal, by Mrs. HECKWITH.
Sampson Low & Co.

THIS is a spirited narrative of adventure, energy and perseverance which is very pleasing to read. Mrs. Heckwith was not only a trader, but a farmer also, a good judge of oxen and horses, and indefatigable in looking after her stock. In her trading experiences she is often alone among the Kaffirs, visits their kraals, and brings back waggon loads of corn to Pretoria. She fords rivers on her brave little horse Eclipse, outspanns on the veldt at night, and watches in her stables all night, revolver in hand, when there are horse stealers about. Mrs. Heckwith has had medical experience also in India, and her services are often called for among the Boers and the other farmers in the Transvaal. The war and the consequent depression in trade caused her to suffer greatly in her fortune, and the graphic and amusing picture she draws of the difficulties of farming, the absence of trustworthy servants and the discomfort of the farm-houses, is not likely to tempt many other ladies to follow her example.

Theatricals and Tableaux Vivants for Amateurs, by L. UPCOTT GILL. "The Bazaar" Office, 170, Strand, W.C.

An amusing little volume which is likely to be of real service to amateurs, if, as seems likely, the passion for theatrical representations and tableaux should increase instead of subsiding. Careful hints are given for the arrangement of the stage, the furniture and other "

"pro

May 15th, 1882.

perties," and still more important, for the "making up" of the actors' faces and the costumes. Amateurs who want to act with spirit and effect and at the same time with due attention to economy would do well to consult this little book. We must at the same time acknowledge that some of the directions for costumes at tableaux verge on, if they do not pass, the line of the absurd. Take the following-"A Woman's Rights Costume."

The make up for a character representing "Woman's Rights" is very simple. A large tortoiseshell back comb, the largest that can be procured, should be worn at the back of the head. The collar and cuffs should be white with large red spots, and a grey bow, as shown at Fig. 67. The costume should be made in the form of a tightly fitting paletôt of a light brown material, with dark brown trimmings. The bottle which is suspended by the strap slung over the shoulders, should be labelled "Smelling Salts," and the small reticule should be red with black trimmings. The skirt should be of a light grey with a dark border. There should be a pocket on the outer costume with a handkerchief protruding, and very large buttons should be placed down the centre. Old-fashioned spectacles would greatly add to the effect, and if a large green umbrella of a past age can be procured, so much the better. The cuffs should be very prominent, reaching half way down the hand. The skirt should be deeply kilted, and the paletôt made to fasten with hooks.

If the author of the above had seen the elegant and fashionable dresses on the platform and elsewhere in St. James's Hall, at the Women's Suffrage Meeting on April 24th, he might have been tempted to doubt the accuracy of his description as applying to the leaders of that movement. But as "Woman's Rights" is itself a fanciful chimæra, vanishing when approached closely, it is no wonder that the typical costume should also be fanciful and monstrous.

A NEW magazine called the Bristol Review has been published which contains, besides other interesting matter, a very thoughtful article by Miss Blackburn on the Economics of Representation. She points out that just as capital is "the accumulated result of past labours gathered up and spent again in rendering further production possible, so representative government is the aggregate of the thought of the people concentrated and organized to produce higher levels of national power and honour," and she asks whether there is not

May 15th, 1882.

an immense loss to society in leaving the minds of women so little educated as they are at present.

A few weeks ago there appeared in the pages of Nature (Dec. 8th, 1881) a drawing of a neat little instrument used by a tribe in the north of Borneo, to compress and beautify the heads of their infant daughters by flattening them to the shape set by the fashion of the tribe. The instrument was described as 66 by no means roughly made, and so well adapted to its purpose that one must regard it as the result of the experience of many generations;" an instrument, in fact, made to fit the head tenderly, and by an incessant, gentle, perhaps even soothing pressure, imperceptibly to bring about the required deformity. Like the soft, ceaseless pressure of this little instrument on the skull of the child of the wild savage, sits on the brain of the civilized woman the soft, ceaseless pressure of political inferiority. No pressure can be more imperceptible and efficacious than that which law can thus exercise. So neatly adjusted it is scarcely felt, or is even welcomed by many as a kindly relief from responsibility; so un-intermittent and so universal, it has become part of the natural environment, so to say, of women; so efficient in its teaching, it has brought public opinion to regard apathy and ignorance of her responsibilities as a citizen to be virtuous and praiseworthy in a civilized woman, as the flattened skull is regarded as beautiful in the savage child. In Central Celebes, says the authority above quoted, "boys' heads are pressed laterally from behind that they may become good warriors, the foreheads of girls are broadened to increase the beauty of the women." In Great Britain, men are taught to value political liberty as the most precious heritage, and interest in public affairs as the mark of a good citizen; women are taught to despise political liberty, and to believe that indifference to all outside her home is her noblest condition of mind. The savage applies his press to the skull; the British Constitution applies its press to the brain within. The first gives a deformed bent to the outward appearance, which after all is a matter of individual loss or gain-but the latter gives a soporific to the working brain, which ought to be active for the general good, but is pro tanto soothed to quietness and indifference. How much loss this brings to the common store of national power we cannot estimate; the loss to the individual woman can be more easily imagined.

THE most important part of the education of any girl is the encouraging her to think for herself on current topics; and next to this comes the importance of learning how to express herself upon them. For this double purpose the publication of magazines by the girls in collegiate schools is always a welcome sight. No. 20 of Our Magazine, issued by the students of the North London Collegiate School for Girls has just reached us, and is full of sprightly and sensible articles. The Chel

tenham Ladies' College also issues a magazine. A new competitor has appeared on the scene in the magazine of the Plymouth High School for Girls. The first number contains some very good reflections on the political responsibilities of women. It says:

It seems then quite simple and obvious that women have duties towards the State which are just as binding as those other duties on which so much stress has been laid. For whatever view we may adopt as to the origin and ultimate nature of duty in the abstract, we shall, I think, find it impossible to conceive any definite set of duties which are not relative; i.e., which are binding on us simply as human beings, and not rather as human beings standing in certain relations to one another. And conversely there is no relation of life in which men and women stand to one another which does not involve claims and duties. Now with regard to some of the obligations which women contract through entering into certain relations, the voice of society is loud and peremptory. The duties incumbent upon a woman as a member of a family as wife, mother, sister, are thought so important that any deficiency in them greatly detracts from our estimate of the moral character of the defaulter. Also the duties of a woman towards that particular social class to which she belongs, or towards any religious body of which she may be a member, commonly receive sufficient attention. How is it then that we hear and think so little of a woman's duties as a member of a state? There have been times and places in which those duties have been regarded as of paramount importance, in which woman's chief function was considered to be the rearing, training, and constant sustaining of those who were to devote themselves to the work of the State. I doubt not that if now a real call for genuine patriotism were to arise, Englishwomen would not be found deficient. But in times of peace and quiet, do they sufficiently realize the fact that their actions tend to the progress or to the decline of their nation ?

RECORD OF EVENTS.

POOR LAW GUARDIANS.

ON April 19th, Mr. Leahy's Bill to amend the Law relating to the election of Poor Law Guardians in Ireland was read the second time. Mr. Dickson, M.P., has given notice that he will, when this Bill comes on in Committee, move an amendment that the restrictions now preventing women, when suitably qualified ratepayers, from being guardians in Ireland be removed.