"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 11 March 1908, Page 75

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for t.ie Witness Ladies' Page.),

' v I2J SEVERAL SORTS OF FOGS.

.■ I dropped upon this" artMe ; "ifi my ttfdm•ing paper yesterday: — "Most women are plain — sinfully plain," rematked a man to m«, with brutal frankness, r at # gathering «f-]romen-tKe- other day.x. But was" h«i far wrong? '> . : Look around any assembly of women, and • -what do you see? ,1 You cannot fail to see that most women ehdw-^aigiis of' ageing quite, early in life. ~ A wom^n . ought to be ftt. her best between ' the-'ager-bf TO ana '4b',~ Vbtt to&any are barely !• outo jof their iHt Wen tie 6 -before they begin to ; facfc. . J " > " Lttt any .-woman.-. set out- on. a- series of 1 afternoon calk, and' make a mental note of ;-. the*; results.'" What doe's Bhe find? Very often » several women in bad health, and conse- • ' quently lacking in beauty. Found Mrs A. looking very seedy; said she was nearly mad with neuralgia all last night; never slept a wink. Miss B. at home with an awful cold. Mrs C. suffering from rheumatism. Mts D. up in -town yesterday to see a •pecialist. Has been very bad with neuritis. Mrs E. recovering from an operation for appendicitis. It is almost impossible to pay a round of calls without finding a state of things very much as portrayed above. Th« habits of the woman who is sinfully plain are its follows : Before rising she partakes of a cup of tea and' thin bread, and butter. An hour later she breakfasts on coffee, hot roll and butter, fried bacon, or an egg, marmalade. About three hours later she partakes of a substantial lunchmeat, sweets, biscuits, and butter. Two •and a-half hours pass and afternoon tea, appears — tea, hot scones, and cake. In another two and a-balf hours she is seated at the dinner table — four or five courses, followed by coffee. Bedtime comes, but there is no rest for the poor, abused internal organs. They have been struggling since early morning to deal with the heterogeneous mass of food thrust . upon them, and they will have to do so through the long night watches. Note the habits* of the woman of superb health end beauty. She rises early and devotes 20 minutes to vigorous physical exercises. Then follows a cold or tepid bath. An hour before breakfast she_ drinks a pint of distilled cold water. Breakfast consists of plenty of stewed or fresh fruit, pure wholemeal bread, butter, perhaps an egg; the entire meal being thoroughly masticated. After breakfast outdoor exercise; but the time is usefully employed, often to the benefit of others. An hour before her second meal (dinner) she drinks another pint of distilled water. (No liquid at meals.) Five or six hours intervene between the two meals, hence her appetite is keen, end! the simplest fare tastes delicious. At 5 o'clock another pint of distilled water. At 7 o'clock a simple meal of fresh or stewed fruit only. The day is over. The stomach and the other organs of the body have done their fair share of work and no more! The pure food has made Dure blood. Pure blood spells health. Health spells beauty. "If "most women are plain" — they deserve to be! — G. H. What, on the whole, might women answer? That the types above given is the same woman — first in her animal ignorance, and then in her animal knowledge !— selfish through and through. There is no choice to make between the woman who has her breakfast, in bed to please herself and the woman who rises early and exercises and fasts to enhance her physical bsauty far its own sake. The indolent . woman and the greedy court setf-gratification, and the woman who ' abstains from indolence and food for the sole reason of enhancing her personal charm and to prolong her physical existence does it for self-gratification also. The result is more pleasant to the observer. But how many women, comparatively, in this world of wives and mothers and daughters, sisters ar.d aunts and cousins, and the greater sisterhood of women who earn their h--'d, have leisure either to eat and 101 l jmselves to death or to exercise and diet themselves to a physical perfection? Supposing women are plain, where are their mates? A woman might retort against the charge . that in any a.«sembly-. if they are "wickedly plain.' that in any assembly of men they are only recognisable by their coarser personal urgliness. If the real habits of the women who are "sinfully plain" were recorded, they would reveal a veiy different state of affairs from that attributed. Before rising she longs for a snatch of sleep ; baby has kept her awake most of the night. A cup of tea and th-'n bread and butter in bed would be a luxury. An hour later she breakfasts on snack? — sips of tea and jsnatehes of feed, between pouring out the hot coffee for husband and helping him to bacon and eggs : helping the children to their breakfast, preparing them for 'school, the washing and dressing and feeding the baby, and generally ordering me household. "About three hours later" she partakes of a lunch anything but substantial, and occupies an hour and a-half with other domestic duties : hurriedly dresees and journeys \o afternoon tea — "hot scones and cuke" : <md folk, especially die men folk, find her looking "seedy."' She journeys home ; :s the playmate of her children, feeds, bathes, and puts them to bed. teaches them to blest father and all ki"d friends. Forts out their sock.-* for doming, mends all the little broken places in the ; r morals and tempers, and senda them to sleep, happy. Then she directs the little servant _ about the master's dinner, cooks part o e . it her-f-elf, spreads the t;<ble, arranges the flowers, odds up the acix>unts. writes to neglected friends, ar.d thru at dinner table listens to hc-r husband's* nbtise of the city, and prai&s r.f a new beauty. Btdtime conies, but there is no rest for the poor abused nerves. In the morning she is "Wickedly plain."' But the wickedness ie not hers. Until the opening of Parliament folk remain abroad. Big folk there are, however — many millions, — who are compelled to put up'with England and its climate ;

j'Jujd" during tS& la6t"w£ek there"; has, in a j way, been Tnore r Climate than England on view. Fog has obliterated 1 most of the island, and London in particular. The week end, as far as "prospect" was concerned, was blotted out. On the Saturday —that day of all days in London when speed is of value —traffic had to crawl at a snail's pace. Conductors of" omnibuses had lo walk before their 'buses with lanterns, and crowds of many hundreds waited outside the theatres for electric tramcars to take them hdmef ,ward ; for cabs and. taxi-cabs and many omnibuses had been taken off the road. The motor- omnibuses, that panting individuals are usually lucky to board with a hop, skip, and a jump —if they are agile —crawled along, outdistanced by the ordinary pedestrian at other times despised. The fog was not confined to London. The Channel and the coasts were j blotted out, and on the Sunday in London at noon there was midnight darkness, and j the sea-coast towns' were phantom-towns 'of mist. There was disaster and death on road and river and rail; the marvel is how in a city like London, and a Piccadilly of the sea, the traffic can be regulated in the dark. For days the fog came and went, and the King on the I Monday, travelling from Paddington, and the Queen from Sandringham, to Windsor, j arrived there in a fog so thick around I the castle that about 30 men were posted J with lanterns on Castle Hill to light the I royal carriages home. 1 The unemployed, who were tramping ! from Manchester to London to lay their grievances before Mr John Burns, had a ■ bad time. The local trade unionists proj vided them with a meal before starting, and many of the local barbers goodnaturedly threw in a free shave. Before they started a local doctor, Dr Marsh, intervened, and strongly advised that the women and children who had commenced the journey should be sent back. Two of the children had already developed bronchitis, and they, with the women amd their t husbands, were sent back to Manchester Iby train. At Congileton, where the police provided several of the demonstrators with ! boots, the men only had threepence each. j Two of the men obtained work on the road. On arriving at Hanky the men ! found themselves in an awkward predicament. They had) nowhere to sleep, and the local Labour party were unable to find shelter for them at a moment's notice. While their leaders went off in different directions in search of lodging, the men ; remained in the street in the dense fog, shivering with cold. Eventually their • case was laid before a Salvation Army captain, who agreed to give them shelter for the night at the headquarters. Hours , of tramping, hours of hunger and cold ! did not seem to deter the men. What a grim menace, that hungry, marching army coming on day after day to lay their complaint —no work —at the opening doors of Parliament. The "Suffragettes," in view of the opening of Parliament, have resumed their campaign of last year —if, indeed, they can be said to have relinquished it at all. During the whole year, whenever the opportunity has offered, .they have reminded the country that they are alert and ea^er. In the parliamentary lull, when members have been engaged in the eocial-public functions of opening a , bazaar, and giving voice to their charit- ' able views*, "How "about votes for women?" ' would unexpectedly be asked the altruistic orator. In odd and secure corners of the country, whenever a member gave vent to his impassioned belief that —from his ! point of view —all was or was not going ! to be well with the world, "How about the position of women?" a female voice would ask. Ridicule and laughter have i been the result of more than one "big" ;iddrees to constituents. And always one hears that the women interrupters were j "ejected" —six or seven of them, and from ! every important meeting. But as the j opening; of Parliament has drawn near they, have grown more emphatic, demanding' that in the King's Speech "Votes for women" shall appear. There have been, on a differently-organised plan, repetitions of the scenes of last year—suffragettes forcing their way to the powers that be, arrests, imprisonment, and much loyalty to the cause. It is interesting to note how many influential women are in the rankf —artists of the stage and literature, ladies of title and ~ birth, and the other day a lady of rank who has been noted for her charities refused her accustomed donations on the grour.d that she would not subscribe to Telieve the burden of a country which denied her the privilege of a voice in its laws. Mre Pankhurst, who last year suffered imprisonment for the cause, and who said that not till woman's blood had been ehed for it would it be won, was this week very near fulfilling her own prophecy. The Unionist victory in Mid-Devon and the defeat of the Labour party was attributed by the mob mainly to the influence of the suffragettes, and after the poll was declared the wild beasts —for one cannot call them men —thus asserted themselves: Just as this melee had ended and the crowd were looking for some fresh object of their lesentment, a group of young lads. ' wearing Buxton favours, began to yell and boo as they recognise in two ladies turning the corner into Quesn street Mrs Pankhurst, the distinguished organiser of the militant Suffragist movement, and her erergetic • lieutenant. Mrs Martell. "The Suffragettes!" screamed the boys, and immediately there was another rnpb, and before they had time to realise what was i happening the two ladies were the centre of a knot of men, boys, and women, hustling tliein, yelling oaths and execrations, reaching ' ever o-ie another's shoulders to strike them and tear their clothing. Fortunate l?, the ladies were oa tke izuide of the pavement, and

th« wide doorway of. the grocery store of Mr W. A. Banbury was open. The pressure of the crowd forced them into the shop, with the leaders of the crowd following. Police managed to hold the rush long enough to enable the two terrified ladies to hurry through the. . premises and seek escape by the back .door of ?the shop.. ." %%. „- , But- the;, infuriated motT -knew the -ground, and anticipated thetret»»k.,;Whiie_ tEfetpolree strugglmg air4Ke. front ■fcnewHriothinVJDf was going ..on elsewhere^-gome ol^the-.mob^ with yells'. Trad, criea^ and :murder.*ja&stheJ!r faces, -rushed down ~a nairow side^lane' .into which a passage letr3i£g to the back ctoor opens. They reached the- back' door from that side just as Mrs Pankhurst and Mrs Martell did, and with savage yells seized the l«-diaa. In « moment Mts-Martell, grasped by the neck, was thrown to the ground, dragged out into the lane, and kicked. Mrs Pankhurst endeavoured to help her, but was herself seized and thrown down. Mrs Banbury, the wife of the proprietor, rushed to the rescue, and did nobly. But the strength of three women was unavailing against a maddened crowd. One of the assailants, a young Liberal lad, frightened apparently by the turn things were taking/^suddenly turned from menacing the ladies and fought with all his strength to keep the following crowd back. As the passage was, fortunately, a very narrow one, his help was of service, and in a moment more a strong detachment of police, coming at the double from Union street, forced their way through the press, gained the shopfront, pushed back the crowd, and saved the situation. The mob, however, maintained a very ugly attitude, and the police apparently did not consider it necessary or prudent to disperse them. They did not draw their truncheons even. In Mrs Banbury' s drawing room, under her kindly care (writes a journalist), I found the ladies. Their clothing was covered with mud, their hats and veils were torn, Mrs Pankhurst was suffering great pain from a bruised ankle, and Mrs Marten from the wrenching her neck had received and the kicks and blows inflicted upon her. Mrs P-ankhurst was hardly able to speak for emo'■on, but her first thoughts and first words were of the cause to which she had devoted her career. "Now," she said, "will they give us votes? You see what cause they think has defeated the Liberal — 'Votes for Women.' I thought my last hour had come. The language, the horrible, horrible language, and the murderous faces ! But if they want my blood they may have it, so long as they give us the vote. I have always said that some of us women would have to give up our lives for this cause, and I arm willing to give up mine ios the price of victory. But to think that it is the poor working people, to whose interests I have given my whole life, who should have don© this to-day!" And this was in civilised England !