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ultimate reference for the permanence or spread of this custom must be the public, to a great degree the women, who have most to do with the shopping. If they persist in doing their shopping late in the evening, the shops will remain open to serve them, and it would be too much to expect from the humanity or the hygienic conscience of the tradesmen to expect them to persist in a reform which is not generally accepted.

ALLOWANCES TO SOLDIERS' WIVES AND CHILDREN.

Mr. CHILDERS informed Mr. O'SHEA that the improvements which had been made in the scale of allowances have been found very satisfactory. Formerly the separation allowances in the case of all married soldiers were 6d. for the wife and 2d. for each of the children up to fourteen years; and the soldier was not required to supplement these allowances out of his pay. Now the wife of a non-commissioned officer receives 8d. a day from the public and 8d. out of her husband's pay, and the wife of a private 8d. from the public and 4d. from her husband. Similarly the allowances for the children were from the public 2d. for each child (the limit for female children being raised to sixteen years of age boys under fourteen, while in the case of sergeants, 12d., and in the case of rank and file 1d. for each child (up to a certain maximum) was stopped from the soldier's pay.

THE CHARTERS NATIONAL SCHOOLS, Belfast, have just been re-opened, having been greatly enlarged by Miss Charters; she had originally built them in memory of her father. The national system of education is taught in these schools, together with practical education in cookery for ladies, and for the wives and daughters of the working classes. The classes for cookery are under Miss Connery's superintendence.

THE WESLEYAN CONFERENCE AT LEEDS. At the morning's session of August 1st, it was suggested that during the conversation on the state of the work, the ladies, being members of the Wesleyan Society, should be admitted to the gallery of the chapel; but, after some conversation in which considerable opposition was offered to the proposal, it was withdrawn. Considering

the valuable work which women have done in the Wesleyan cause, this restriction appears to us to be illiberal and behind the times.

As one of the results of having three Lady Guardians on a board, take the following: First workhouse officer: "You seem very busy, to-day." Second ditto: "Yes there's a deal for everybody to do now the ladies are always around."

AN old franchise of the town of Maldon, in Essex, before the Reform Bill of 1832, when it possessed nearly as many voters as inhabitants, was that by the terms of its charter all daughters of freemen made their husbands free by marriage.

A GIRL HEROINE.-The Guildhall, Stockport, has just been the scene of a most interesting and impressive ceremonial, from whatever point of view it may be considered. Miss Anne Loftus, of Stockport, a young lady aged seventeen, was recently voted the silver medal, awarded for deeds of heroism on land, by the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Under circumstances of imminent peril-her own life being in fact the stake -this heroic girl dragged her little sister, aged seven, from a burning house one night last April. The Mayor, magistracy, and inhabitants of Stockport, crowded the Town Hall to do their noble young citizen honour. The Duke of Manchester, as Prior of the Order of St. John, was represented by Mr. Furley, a distinguished member of the Brotherhood. With all form and circumstance the blushing heroine, holding the little one she had saved by the hand, was led to the Mayor's chair, and amid the plaudits and tears of an admiring and sympathetic crowd, the medal was attached to her breast.

A GALLANT "SISTER."-While Sister Agnes, of the House of Mercy, Clewer, near Windsor, was making arrangements the other day with a cottager's wife at Dedworth, for the reception of a little invalid boy who had been brought from London, she was informed that the child had fallen into a pond near at hand. Sister Agnes, who is an expert swimmer, without waiting for assistance, ran to the place, and finding that the boy had disappeared, plunged into the water, and directed by the air bubbles rising among the duckweed on the

surface, fortunately succeeded in rescuing him from being drowned.

IRISH LADIES IN DISTRESS.-Mr. William D. La Touche, J.P., of Dublin, the treasurer of the Association for Relief of Ladies in Distress through Non-Payment of Rent in Ireland, writing to the Lord Mayor to acknowledge the receipt of the fifteenth instalment of £1,000 from the Mansion House Fund, states that it is dreadful to think what would have been the fate of those most deserving and helpless ladies if his lordship and the noble-minded subscribers to the fund had not so liberally succoured them. The funds collected from the balls, bazaars, and other fêtes given in England had been retained for distribution by the English committees, with the exception of £600, sent by Lady Alice Fitzwilliam, on the part of the Yorkshire committee, for the assistance of such deserving ladies whose circumstances were outside the strict rules upon which the distribution was conducted. The total amount received was £36,278 9s. 11d., of which they had spent in grants and loans the sum of £30,408 17s. 7d., and they had in bank the balance of £6,085 188. 11d., including the last remittance sent by the Lord Mayor. On Thursday the Committee had 38 cases of distress before them, and granted £906 to 30 of the applicants. The number of applicants from the commencement had been 957, and of cases relieved 818. The Committee felt that the timely aid so generously placed in their hands had enabled them to save from either actual starvation or the workhouse a very large number of highly-respectable ladies and their families who had been reduced through no fault of theirs to the lowest want and penury by the non-payment of rents in Ireland.-Daily News.

LADIES NEEDED AS VISITORS AND NURSES FOR

ALEXANDRIA.

A letter in the Daily News, of August 12th, by Colonel Duncan, director of the Ambulance Department, Order of St. John, calls attention to the necessity that well qualified ladies should volunteer to start for Egypt. He says:

SIR,-Information has reached the central committee of the St.

John Ambulance Association, that the amount of distress and sickness among the civilian residents in Alexandria, Port Said, and Egypt generally, is appalling, and that unless some steps are taken at once, fatal results must ensue on a terrible scale. A circular has been sent to all the Ambulance centres in the United Kingdom appealing for volunteers from the ladies holding certificates, who would act as district visitors among the poor, and it is proposed also to send a staff of trained nurses. The Arab customs make it necessary that female visitors should be employed in searching out sickness and starvation among the native families. To carry on the proposed work of relief it is necessary to have experienced administrators, good organisers, and money. Viscountess Strangford has kindly consented to go out in charge of the nurses and visitors, and her presence will be an assurance that the work will be patiently and skilfully administered. Major-General Burnaby, M.P., is also ready to go at once, with other gentlemen to Egypt, and by his well-known mastery of details will greatly relieve Lady Strangford of the burden of local organisation. But the expedition can only be despatched if the scheme receives adequate pecuniary support from the public. There are many considerations to recommend it. Those for whom we plead, and desire to labour, are in suffering through no fault of their own, nor are they parties to those dissensions which have brought desolation upon Egypt. Kind treatment of the resident civil population now will pave the way to a rapid reconciliation after hostilities are over, without which the advantages promised by us to the Egyptian people might be deferred, owing to inability on their part to receive them without suspicion.

The Army Medical Department has made such admirable arrangements for our troops, that at present any additional medical or nursing help for them would be superfluous, although, of course, it has been offered by the Order of St. John. But in the event of any unforeseen emergency the scheme now submitted to the public will be found useful by the military authorities, and in the meantime it is proposed to organise and ration the nurses and visitors sent out with Lady Strangford on a system which would prove suitable for military as well as civil hospital duties.

I venture to appeal to the public through your columns for contributions to enable this expedition to be despatched on its mission of humanity. Every day's delay may mean the loss of many lives, and certainly the continuance of much preventible suffering. Hearty co-operation in the proposed undertaking will be a beautiful phase of that with which we are happily now so familiar-philanthropy in war.

Subscriptions, however small, will be gratefully received by the Right Hon. the Viscountess Strangford, 3, Upper Brook Street, W.; Major General Burnaby, M.P., 51, Eaton Square, S.W.; Sir E. A. H. Lechmere, Bart., M.P., Rhydd Court, Upton-on-Severn; Captain H. C. Perrott, St. John's Gate, Clerkenwell, E.C.; Mr. Douglas H. Gordon, treasurer, 6, Tite Street, Chelsea, S.W.; and by myself. -I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant,

F. DUNCAN, Lieut.-Col. R.A., Director of
Ambulance Dept. Order of St. John.

29, The Common, Woolwich, August 17.

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NURSES FOR EGYPT.-Twenty-four thoroughly trained nurses from Netley are going out in the Carthage. They will be treated as regular army nurses. A medical journal says that the Army Medical Department speak in the highest terms of these nurses' abilities.

DISSOLUTION OF THE LADIES' LAND LEAGUE.

A special meeting of the Ladies' Land League was held in Dublin on August 10th, when a resolution, dissolving the organisation was passed. Mrs. Bourke and Miss O'Toole proposed and seconded a resolution recommending the establishment of Leagues throughout the country for the purpose of teaching the rising generation their country's history, and encouraging the circulation of national literature.

The Daily News says:

Called into existence by the passing of the "Protection Act". with wonderful forbearance the phrase "Coercion Act" is on this occasion eschewed-the Ladies' Land League, in view of the approaching expiration of that Act, and of "the contemplated formation of a national organisation to watch over the interests of evicted tenants," think it desirable to dissolve, so the projected Mansion House Committee, heralded as a "non-political" and as a "purely charitable" organisation, is to be the successor of the Ladies Land League, and so confident do the ladies feel that the projected "nonpolitical" organisation will worthily step into their shoes, that they do not wait for its actual formation before performing on themselves the "happy despatch." But in their last will and testament, as contained in the resolutions adopted to day, they " earnestly request the ladies throughout Ireland who so efficiently carried out the work of the League during the past eighteen months to continue to cultivate and develop the national spirit which has been evoked by the establishment of the Ladies' Land League, and this they consider can be most effectively done by the active organisation of the children's leagues for the purpose of teaching a rising generation the history of the country, and encouraging the circulation of Irish national literature."

FEMALE CLERKS IN THE POST OFFICE.

On August 10th, Mr. Fawcett, when questioned by Mr. S. Allen, said that about 250 female clerks are now employed in the Central Post Office of London. It was intended considerably to increase the number during the next six months, though not more than in the last six months.