WOMEN'S ACTIVITIES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 821, 21 May 1910, Page 11

WOMEN'S ACTIVITIES.

'A very prominent daily paper devotee some space to tho praise of lady almoners of hospitals, says an English writer. These ladies work very hard and do incalculable good in a spliore where conceivably many might suffer from the absence of anyone whose special work it tras. ', Yet they are seldom heard of, and their picturesque title is unknown hi most households. Briefly, it is tho business of a lady almoner to look after ' the patients ' discharged from a hospital, to put them in touch with any society ready to help a given case, to see as far as possible that their homes are fit for tneir reception, and "that their families know how to treat them; and to get work for them where it is needed. Such important duties as these are carried on by a largo number nf women (the London Hospital has a very' large Almoners' Department); the work ° is arduous and requires unflagging attention and wide knowledge of societies and_ institutions; and yet" jt is work which is almost unknown, as it is certainly "unhonoured and unsiingi" It is v an eminently, feminine branch of occupation; could the most Victorian and lordly male object to a profession entirely centred in the care of the weak and unfortunate?

The new One-Act Playhouse already baa its first programme drawn up; it consists of five plays, of which one is by' Mrs; Beatrice Heron-Maxwell. It is a light comedy—a 'vein in which eho excels, as those will agree who. saw the Kendols in "The Housokeeper!" The woman dramatist is- having quite a royal progress to success. A woman has written a comic opera, which has bean prodnoed 'in Berlin. She is a Dutchwoman, but apparently lias succeeded in writing a musical comedy of the- most approved style, for we are told, that "the plot is points less, but the. music is tuneful throughout." The name is "The Village Countess: Now that one comes to think of ".«; seems strange that it has been left till now for a woman to write such aiwork. It seems there are still things nnattempted for our sex to grapple Sntn.