rapidly growing need of housing.' They are not to blame that the demand developed more rapidly than they could create supply; they are perhaps to blame in so far as they do not adjust and re-adjust themselves to keep pace with modern requirements.

In any scheme for housing women one thing would have to be borne in mind.

WOMEN ARE NOT CHILDREN

We are often told that an occasional re-statement of old truths is desirable, and after study of this question it actually seems necessary to emphasise this very elementary truth, which is so constantly lost sight of. One may go yet further, and say that if treated like children, women will prove restive and troublesome. Not unnaturally. If further assurance is desired that women are women, and not children or even young girls, enlightenment can be gained from these returns. The ages have been very loyally entered. A few shrink from fuller details than 'prime,' 'middle-aged,' ' full-aged,' but it is hardly to be supposed these are still in their teens. One lady hovers between thirty and forty.' Only one (the youngest) is 'sweet-and-twenty,' and the greatest age-shall remain untold. It is enough to state that the united ages of these women average thirty-three years, eleven months, and a few days. One might perhaps without offence put it at thirty-four years, and that is an age of discretion. We are now on delicate ground, yet cannot overlook the fact that to reach this average many must have passed that figure long ago.

She might pass very well for forty-three
In the dusk, with the light behind her,

would be a true description of many. Thus it would be wisest, in considering what manner of housing is required, to bear in mind that the would-be inmates have averaged the age of thirty-four. One has been told that this is just the age at which women have been found to be most cantankerous; and certainly if, being thirty-four, they are treated as if fourteen, this is not improbable. Young students, of course, there are in crowds; but though no one would wish to exclude them, there is already much good provision for them, and more in process of preparation. In any case, students only need temporary, not permanent accommodation; and many rubs can be endured when they are known to be temporary.

Their own words will best show what ideal residence is slowly taking shape in women's minds. A close and repeated perusal of all the opinions and suggestions given, together with many ideas culled from interviews and from the little conference where the topic was discussed, all show that the general trend of opinion is in one and the same direction. Here are extracts :

What we women want is a house and not a school.

Imagine that you are providing for respectable men, and work on those lines throughout.

The first principle (one woman aptly remarks) in building for women is to forget that they are women. Provide rooms, &c., as for men, with the same absence of grandmotherly regulations, and confidence in their respectability. In a block of chambers with restaurant have a committee of management largely composed of inmates, and they will keep out or turn out undesirable characters, as in a club.

A wholesome existence with perfect freedom is all that is required. I am one of thousands of such women.

What is chiefly required is elasticity. A building containing rooms of varying sizes, numbers and rental. Freedom to dispense altogether with extras if necessary, ability to secure moderate comfort if able. The lodgers to be treated as respectable responsible people, not as children.

The scheme (writes the head of a school) needs to be an elastic one to meet the needs of those whose income varies from 70%. to 1407., real privacy and complete liberty. People who abuse the liberty to be dismissed, rather than the wellconducted to be penalised.

Living in chambers is distasteful unless each resident is absolutely independent, as in men's residential chambers.

There appears to be a very strong objection to herding together in one block people with a monotonous class of income, though a few opinions favour it-hoping thus for greater economy. The elastic method is preferred, with varying sets of rooms and a sliding scale of prices. This plan admits of much greater social variety, and is less depressing in its effects.

I think many of us would prefer residential chambers like Queen Anne's Mansions, only cheaper, or like Hyde Park Court in miniature.

From a fairly extensive and varied experience of women workers' lives, two evils appear to predominate: First, segregation into 'hen-communities,' so that intercourse with men becomes more and more difficult. I refer to the need of a wider intercourse-intellectual, social, &c. Second, want of organisation and co-operation in domestic matters.

It is a pity that flats or chambers could not be arranged for both men and women, as one great drawback to the lives of women workers is the lack of men's society.

We want flats like Holbein House, with a restaurant.

Why should it not be possible to erect a building for men and women? There are hundreds of men-clerks in banks, for instance-who would be only too thankful not to live in lodgings. I speak on behalf of my own brothers; we should be very glad of something less expensive.

Certainly, if the wishes of these and many other ladies were carried into execution, many of the disadvantages attendant upon 'pusseries'-so called-would vanish away.

It would be a great step on in social evolution (urges another writer) if each flat should be separate and available for men and women-married couples, or brothers and sisters; if there should be houses something like Sloane Gardens House, but in which men and women should reside.

I do not favour the idea of communities for women only.

Chambers for men and women mixed should be encouraged; women have everything to gain by association with men on an equal footing.

No system will permanently answer which treats a rather morally superior and certainly independent class of women as if they were boarding-school girls.

The massing-together of communities of women only seems to me very narrowing, and tending to emphasise women's idiosyncrasies.

I think it is most essential the flats should be let to men and women. The only control necessary would be careful references as to character before admission.

Space forbids the multiplication of such quotations; enough that they are the deliberate opinions of sober, middle-aged women, many of whom hold responsible and dignified positions. I quote one more passage from a letter written me by the (retired) head-mistress of a High School :

The ideal community seems to me a place where both men and women are freely allowed to live (unmarried), with a common kitchen, but not a common dining-room.

Even in communities of women only, a large number are in favour of admitting men (outsiders or tenants' visitors) to the restaurants. Some think it would be a means of elevating the conversation; others, more practical, see in it a device for elevating the quality of the food.

It would help to check the airing of grievances of elderly ladies with no occupation.

It is unwholesome to exclude men and make a sort of worldly nunnery of such a dwelling.

The presence of men keeps up the standard of food.

Certainly admit them; the cooking is better where men are allowed.

A very necessary thing, and the only hope of keeping things up to the mark. This would ensure the food being of a better quality.

I go now to a 'mixed' boarding-house, because men insist on good and sufficient food, and that makes things better; women by themselves appear to dread strikes.

It surely cries shame on present methods of management that the presence of man at a meal should be looked on as a sort of last forlorn hope of getting better food. In all, nearly two hundred women express themselves with more or less emphasis on the desirability and the necessity of male society, most of them with great seriousness. Many strongly assert their determination never to enter a community which is not open to both sexes.

Life is not without men; we all have male relations, and it is quite absurd to forbid visits from them. I have a nephew comes up occasionally; mine is the right place for him to stay when he chooses.

Yet in some chambers to this day, even though a rental of 70%. is paid for a flat of three rooms self-contained, the restriction holds

that a tenant cannot invite her own brother or son (if a widow) to spend a night in her own abode. Truly, as one woman says, 'such rules are relics of the Dark Ages, and have no place in modern civilisation.'

Rules such as these and many others are swaddling-clothes which educated and hard-working women have long outgrown, and which none who possess spirit and independence will much longer endure. Rather far, say they, the lonely and dingy lodgings than such lack of freedom. This point gives rise to many expressions of opinion :

The great fault of communities governed by women is the large number of rules they usually make.

There should be no interference with private liberty, except in so far as the general comfort of the community is concerned.

Foolish unnecessary rules and fines should be avoided.

Management should be in the hands of a man, because a woman is apt to make unnecessary rules.

On restrictions and on the internal management of any combined dwelling the women speak in tones of strong decision. The 'representative character' of the committee is insisted upon time and again as a matter of prime importance. Compulsory payment towards food is condemned, and above all it is demanded that no shred or suspicion of charity' should be mixed up with any scheme which the future may develop. Philanthropy (with a percentage) has been rather popular of late. Perhaps as a good inexpensive combined dwelling is really a public need, and might be counted on to pay at least 3 per cent., it would be best to look on it from the first as a business investment.' Tenants paying high rent would thus be spared the irritation of being reckoned semi-paupers.

One cannot emerge from a close and repeated perusal of these returns and opinions without finding that an ideal building has constructed itself in one's mind. A castle in the air, perhaps, which reared sky high out of the suggestions of about six hundred women, shapes itself broadly upon the following lines.

and

A quiet spot in Bloomsbury-for Bloomsbury is the beloved, the chosen of working women-failing that, perhaps Westminster; but in any case not far removed from the indefatigable and indispensable 'bus. Upon this spot a large building to contain accommodation for perhaps two hundred educated working people. It might contain about fifty single or combination rooms, a hundred sets of double rooms, twenty-five sets of three and four rooms each. In the more commodious sets two friends might live together, or a brother and sister share a home. Aloft in the gables artists would pitch their easels, and musicians plead for sound-proof rooms in a far-off corner of the house. Below are the common rooms: a committee room, a library and newspaper room, a smoking-room for men and women, and--last, but not least-a large dining-hall, where no one should be

bound to feed, but which, under the management of a representative committee, should be catered for to the satisfaction of the tenants. Attached would be a workroom or 'mendery,' where stockings with the large holes that are the despair of Saturday night, shirt-buttons hanging by a thread, ragged braids of skirts, and all the sundry evils that garments are heirs to, should find speedy attention at the hands of an experienced needlewoman. This practical suggestion is due to Miss Hitchcock's long experience of London life, and is perhaps only excelled by Mrs. Percy Bunting's scheme for the service of such a household. Her idea is a contiguous building for the servants, a hostel, possibly connected with the main block, where those who serve the house should dwell. They should be engaged on a twofold principle-a certain number working for the management under the Warden, the rest engaged by and responsible to individual tenants. The advantages of such a plan will be at once obvious to those who are familiar with the working of the charwoman system. Living in proximity to their work, servants in the hostel could arrange for morning and evening service, and have free hours in the middle of the day. It must be left to Mrs. Bunting herself to give later on details of her useful and interesting scheme. Perhaps in the hostel a room could also be found for a visiting nurse, whose duty would lie amongst such inmates as required her occasional services. Bicycles (and a place to clean them-the suggestion of an architect) would not be forgotten. The whole would be under the superintendence of a Lady Warden, appointed by and responsible to the representative committee of management; but she, while complete manager of the house, would be-not the ruler, but responsible head servant of the tenants.

This, much condensed, is a broad outline of the 'combined dwelling' that London workers, men and women, want. Undoubtedly the actual construction of such a castle in the air would involve an outlay of full 30,000l. That it would be a profitable investment, and be both readily and constantly filled, if it ever came down from the clouds and was seen in bricks and mortar on solid Bloomsbury soil, is beyond question. At any rate, to know what women are desiring is perhaps the first step towards realisation, and to obtain this knowledge is what the Women's Industrial Council' have endeavoured to do.1 London women will soon be owing a debt of gratitude to Mr. Gilbert Parker for the scheme he has initiated and is even now carrying into effect. Numbers of women are watching and waiting for its realisation with great anxiety. That his proposed women's hotel' will supply a real want and be very readily filled few can doubt, even though it may not in very large degree touch the class of women whose combined views have been herein set forth.

EMILY HOBHOUSE.

› Since writing the above a number of belated returns have come in. These if included would tend to raise the average age and reduce the average income.