THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1880. THE LADIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2079, 22 October 1880, Page 2

THE GLOBE. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1880. THE LADIES OF NEW ZEALAND.

In our issue of yesterday, a lady writing under the name of “ Elinor ” bravely took up the cudgels on behalf of the ladies of this country. It appears that another lady, writing from San Francisco under the name of “ Silver Pen,” had forwarded to a Northern journal her views on her sisterhood in Wellington. Her judgment of their hearts, their manners, and, indeed, everything connected with them, was anything but satisfactory. They were represented as inordinately given to scandal, as frittering away their lives in a series of social meetings devoted to small talk, and in other ways acting in anything but a manner likely to render themselver fitting helpmates to the miserable gentlemen who had been unfortunate enough to secure them as partners for life. In San Francisco the state of affairs was represented as vastly different. There the intellectual life led by the female part of the population was the admiration, not only of the appreciative bachelor, but of their husbands and families. The Societies to which they belonged were well adapted to bring forth into flower their best qualities. “ Women’s Social Science Associations,” from whence even the shadow of a coat tail was religiously excluded, enabled these fair scientists and social reformers to develop views untrammelled by criticism and possibly by logic. Where probably even angels would fear to tread, these daring ladies sported with a lightness indicative of perfect contentment of spirit, and, securely fenced against all intrusion, indulged their eesthetic tendencies to an unlimited extent. “ Elinor,” in reply, commences by pointing out that the ladies of Wellington are not socially, physically or intellectual separated from the ladies of other parts of the country by any great barrier, and that, therefore, the aspersions cast against them must be understood to apply to the sex generally in New Zealand. And, then, as she is, apparently, well versed in the social life of the ladies of San Francisco, she unburdens her mind respecting the sort of life led by these paragons of doubtful as to the claims of “ Silver Pen” to bo reckoned among the elect spirits of the “ City of the Golden Gate,” and draws a somewhat gloomy picture of spiritual dissipations of a spurious mental aristocracy that, she affirms, exists in that rendezvous of “ mining speculators and quondam grog sellers.” The sudden acquisition of wealth by that class has, she says, “produced a superabundant crop of the ‘shoddy’ species and a chambermaid aristocracy. And these possessing, as they do, the wealth sufficient to gratify their distorted ideas of enjoyment, have run into all manner of extravagant license—the men politically as well as socially, the other sex socially chiefly, but in some instances also semi-politically—organising women’s associations and so forth.” And, finally, as to the affairs discussed in these associations “ Elinor ” is anything but flattering.

Without presuming to draw any comparison between the ladies of San Francisco and New Zealand, we may fairly gather from the letters of “Silver Pen” and “ Elinor” some inkling of what a certain class of mind among each think of the other. The more “ advanced ” among the fair ones of San Francisco are of opinion that the views of the New Zealand ladies are cramped, that they are given to petty scandal, and that they had far better adopt more advanced theories as to their social possibilities, while “ Elinor” and those who think with her among our own ladies, hold in abhorence the mental gymnastics practised by their sisters over the water, and think that the true functions of wives and daughters lie in a narrower circle, and that, while the mind need not be neglected, the real sphere of woman’s usefulness is Home. There is certainly a large amount of truth in the latter view, and there may, possibly, be a certain portion of the same divine [principle in the former. Our communities are small, and the discussing of one’s neighbor’s peculiarities has from all time been recognised as a fault into which people, living in close contact the one with the other are likely to fall. Moreover, the mental friction and polish which a large city can alone give are absent. Only superior minds can keep at a high pitch that necessary striving after excellence that a large competition in its very natux-e engenders. On the other hand there is a spurious mental activity that is more or less fatal in its effects. “ Silver Pen ” is singularly reticent as to the performance of home duties by the ladies she so much admires. “ Elinor,” who apparently speaks with authority, has no great opinion of them in this respect. She evidently thinks they are little likely to perform deeds leading the body of mankind to a more advanced civilisation and by inference, suggests that as far as the class to which “ Silver Pen” belongs, the future generation of San Francisco youth of both sexes will suffer from the abnormal gyrations of their mothers.

What is termed the “ emancipation of woman ” is of course very dear to all advanced thinkers, hut these same thinkers are none the less aware of the true quarter where woman’s influence in reality lies. They sympathize with that great apostle of the higher sphere of woman, J. P. Richter, but recognize thoroughly that he did not bargain for associations such as those said to exist in San Francisco. Nothing can be finer than Richter’s scorn of the lower levels to which women are often doomed. . Take

the following ; —He is writing of a girl who is about to be married, and he thus touches on her future in comparison to her past. All nature is now a poem to her—but what will happen in the future ?

“ The sun will be for thee only a hanging baloon stove, a room - heater of the universe ; the moon bnt a cobler’s rush-

light upon the candlestick of a cloud. The Rhine will sink into a pool, and rinsing kettle to whiten thy household linen, and the sea be only a herring pond.” Against such a fate all intellectual women will pray, bnt they will not, of necessity, yearn after Association meetings from which even the shadow of a coat tail is religiously excluded.