MISS CATHERINE SPENCE.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 789, 12 April 1910, Page 3

MISS CATHERINE SPENCE.

.Under .the heading "The Grand Old Woman of Australia," Miss Rose Scott contributes .to the "Sydney/Morning Her.ald. ■: .an appreciation , of' Miss Catherine .Helen bpence,- of -Adelaide, whose death occurred ;last, week.-- Energetic," helpful, courageous, with broad human sympathy, guided: by: a lofty sense of duty and rea-. Boning . powers ot no; mean ' order, she was an ideal pioneer. Her keen sense of humour was always at one with her sympathy, and never used with unkindness. Living, m a world far removed from classes arid cliques, her friends were of both- sexes, old and young, learned or unlearned,' conservatives or radicals, rich » r ,poor[ The fact, of their. immediate, and perhaps transitory, environment was to her a mere detail. : ••-. ■

Her, earliest lesson, in politics came to her ..when six years old,, after hearing her father and mother discussing the Eefonn Bill. She asked what it meant. Her mother replied that many people thought, all. things' were right in Eng•land, and that if anything was changed ; mischief and' ruin ■ would result, but that she and her, father' thought ■ that there .was nothing so good that it; could not be made betted She was very proud of South Australia, and of those nino reforms which that colony began, and which were afterwards adopted by'other. . States, and also in the older world. Of these'reforms, the greatest of which she ■was a pioneer, with her friend - Miss Clarke, was eo doubt that which dealt ■with the boarding-out of destitute children, and the establishment of juvenile courts.. Her strenuous work for effective voting, the Hare-Spence system,. was also en outcome of her broad outlook and keen sense , of justice. She felt that the vote, the tool of true democracy, should represent all, minorities as well as majorities, and that vote became also ineffectual when candidates conld be elected by.a minority, whilst a large majority of voters voting; for two other candidates would remain wholly unrepresented. "I am an independent Liberal," she used to say, "and neither of the two organised parties represents me. If you .wear blinkers-yon will vote what the Americans call the whole ticket. I have friends, whom I honour in all parties— but I. am still .reading,' listening, and observing, for" my long'education is still •unfinished, and I strive .still, to find out what policy, what men,- are likely" to give us better .human conditions, and ionest,. capable government.' There is a ereat deal to.learn besides merely putting a cross' against a'name, in a ballotbox." "..-;

\ 1 .am a new woman," she used to Bay, and I know' it—that v is, if to be a new ; woman is to 'be an 'awakened woman;, awakened to a sense of capacity and responsibility, not,merely to the family and the household, but to the State." Aid well did she do her'duty to both, for besides all 'her public and philanthropic work,. she brought up two/ families of nephews and nieces. .It Kerned to : the student of character that in Miss.- Sponce, heart, brain, and 'spirit., were equally developed and balanced, and all at work at once, with ceaseless energy and 'vitality.

Eggs 40 years old, brought from. China, .were introduced* at a breakfast of the oonncil of the Royal Zoological Society of. Ireland, and were declared to taste like a sort of jelly, of a very, delicate ■flawiur, t ' .