AUSTRALASIAN WOMEN.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 59, 30 May 1907, Page 4

AUSTRALASIAN WOMEN.

I Miss F.lberl-Orlon, a prominent English acirc". and a leading lady of Mr Julias Knight's Dramatic Company, ling some pron xmced opinions concerning Australasian women.

•■They are wonderful.'' she ■ told a Daily Telegraph interviewer, '-so beautiful and yet so intellectual; though if you think I am saying it to court favor with them I'll stop and say no more. 'You know 1 hate cheap methods of advertising.'' Having received the required assurance. Mis* Klbert-Orton continued: "The study of my sex has been an absorbing one with me. Fortunately I have had exceptional opportunities! of seeing the types of various nations, for. before 1 joined the profession. 1 travelled very extensively, and have visited nearly all of the world's greatest centres. Now the Australasian women interest me, because 1 seem to see in them the really advanced women—the types of the future. The mere fact alone that you permit to your women the right of franclii-e is an indication that they are of a progressive uivr. of mind. 1 have no di/iibt that Ihe women of other nations will in the course of time demand similar privileges. Hut, apart from this fact, interesting though it may be, there is something in the social lines of Australasian women which appeals to me very strongly. Their character seems to me to be American in brightness, keenness in conversation, adaptivcness to environment ami self-reliance in their affairs—it is English.in modesty, domesticity and womanly softness. This is the combination of qualities which causes me to describe them as wonderful, for it is wonderful indeed to find an intermixture of the finest traits of character drawn from the two greatest races."