WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 193, 13 February 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Cenducted by "Eileen.") WIVES OF CHINESE AUSTRALIAN WOMEN IX CANTON. Sydney, February 1.

"You can't put it too strongly. Some of the cases I have seen would make your heart bleed." Mr. P. R. F. Carter, who has been living in Canton for six years, and is passing through Sydney on his way to the Old Country, made these remarks in referring, in an interview last evening, to the increasing number of marriages with European women. "And this," he added, "is a matter of special interest to you, because most of those women are Australians." White women, he said, were, no doubt, treated well enough by their Chinese husbands so long as they remained in Australia or in any other country occupied by Europeans, but to go to live in China with their husbands was a very different thing.

"Far better for them to commit suicide than to undergo the awful sufferings that await them there, if they are not absolutely dead to all the finer feelings." This was how he put it. "Not only are they ostracised by all Europeans, but they are looked down upon even by the Chinese themselves, and are made the subject of the coarsest sort of jests by the meanest of the coolies. These European women are taken to the Chinese quarters —they are not allowed to live in the foreign settlement—and the average Chinese house is dirty, ill-venti-lated, full of vermin, and without any sanitary or any sort of conveniences. A living hell is the most fitting expression I can think of, though it is not a very elegant one, to describe the lot of these poor creatures.

"I'm not a soft-hearted man, but I have seen young Australian women up there living in the Chinese quarters amid such conditions as would make you cry if you saw them. And they are not all the lower class of women, either. There is one young woman—an Australian—well connected, well educated and very good looking, who was living for a long time in the Chinese quarters in Canton I under such conditions that I wonder she didn't go crazy. A German doctor found her there through her seeking his help to save her little baby. She told him that she had married her husband here, and he had taken her to Canton, and she had lived in the midst of the Chinese quarters ever since. She seemed to have a fondness for her husband, though, and wouldn't be separated from him. Some of the ladies in the European settlement interested themslves in her case, and special permission has been given her to live in the foreign settlement with her husband, and there she is ekeing out an existence —an outcast as far as Europeans are concerned, and regarded with contempt by the Chinese. It is a very pitiable case, indeed, for this "woman, I have been informed, was very well brought up, and she has certainly all the manners of a lady, and is well educated; and why she made this marriage is a puzzle to me. "There is another Australian woman there, who married her Chinese husband in South Africa. She has got hardened to hr lot now, and wears Chinese clothes. She is also a young woman, a little over 30, but her case is rather different to that of the other, who is a superior type of girl. There are others there, too, but those happento have come under my notice. ' "There ought to be a law prohibiting marriages between white women and Chinese. The woman who marries ft Chinese loses her nationality, of course, and takes the nationality of her hus"band. These marriages are wrong in any circumstances. It is not so bad, of I course, while the parties remain in Aus- ] tralia, but for heaven's sake don't let any more of these poor women go to I China. It's a crime!"

GENERAL NOTES An interesting incident in connection with the wedding of Miss Lily Elsie, the favorite of Daly's Theatre, passed wholly unnoticed by the London press. A notable feature of the ceremony in the church was the presence among the congregation of more men than women; and on the popular bride leaving the building at the close of the ceremony she had to pass between the lines of youthful admirers, who held handkerchiefs to their eyes in an attitude of simulated grief. It was a humorous incident, and at the same time a piquant compliment to the bride.

I For the election of a Governor of Massachusetts, Mr. Louis Frothingham, the i Republican candidate, has''had an unexpected opposition in the action of the Federation of Women's Clubs, an organisation which boasts a membership of over 100,000. The women take exception to the fact that Mr. Frothingham, who is 40 years old and a prominent lawyer, is unmarried. He has been a member of the House of Representatives and Lieutenant-Governor of the State, and is an overseer of Harvard University. None of these points, nor the further fact that he is a literary and cultivated man, save him in the eyes of the women. They have absolutely nothing against him except that he is a bachelor, j and as the fight will be an exceedingly close one it is believed that the women's influence will defeat Mr. Frothingham. When two women get together for an afternoon's chat the recording angel has to begin writing in shorthand (remarks an exchange). Yet another broken engagement in high society. When the engagement of Lady Helen Grosvenor to Sir Hill Child was announced a couple of months ago the couple were overwhelmed with congratulations. Lady Helen, who is one of tho prettiest and most charming girls in London, is the youngest of the late Duke of Westminster's twelve children. Although only in her 24th year, she is also aunt to Countesses (Beauchamp and Shaftesbury and the Duke, of Westminster. It will be seen, therefore, that many noble families are interested in her matrimonial prospects. Sir Smith Hill Chiid was formerly a lieutenant in the Irish Guards, and fought in the Boer war.

A great deal of nonsense (says a writer in the London Daily Graphic) has been written about the tyranny of clothes and the grinding of the helpless under the satin heel of fashion. In reality, no one heed be ground who does not like the process, or be enslaved if she should possess a soul for liberty. But, as a matter of fact, nothing is rarer than .such a soul, as anyone may see by glancing at the frocks worn by any welldressed crowd. This is fashion's apologia. Her tyrannies are eagerly awaited by a huge majority who have not the wit to take the law into their own unpractised hands. Nor does it really pay to have such a wit. To wear your superiority of invention quite literally upon your sleeves and skirt will end by making you either beautiful or too painfully the reverse. In neither case will you be popular enough to benefit the race by your example. Mrs. Mary King, a native" of Louth (Lincolnshire), now living at Gatherums, Louth, claims to be the King's oldest subject. She has just celebrated her 105 th birthday. One of her most treasured possessions is a congratulatory telegram from King Edward.

Miss Rachel Bell, of Adamsville, Ohio (U.S.A.), who has just celebrated her 100 th birthday, says that she has gone : .through her long life without ever having Jaeen kissed. "When I was younger," she remarked, "I went to many parties and dances. I had plenty of chances to marry, but I could never find the man I loved. Lord Meath declares that Great Britain can only continue to rule over the colored subjects of the Empire by showing them that it is to their interest to be, and by making them proud of the fact that they are British subjects. But in England there are men who refuse to arm and train, and women who refuse to increase the population of the country —men who are selfish and women who are eaten up by luxury. Therein lies the danger to an Empire. If the subjoined letter, which appears in the woman's column of the London Standard, means anything, it surely points to an attempt to debar girls from playing hockey on the ground of; its feminity. The writer is on the staff of a well-known English college for girls: i "In view of the fact that hockey has been stopped at one or two of our leadI ing girls' schools, may I ask fot an expression of expert opinion in your columns as to the desirability of the game, played at school with sensible restrictions for individual girls? Is the harm done by it—if harm there is—at all proportionate to the good undeniably gained in respect to (1) the capacity for bearing pain; (2) self-restraint and control of every muscle; ('3) unselfish impulse. ■ In my own experience—l speak as a mother in her fifth decade—the strongest women of my acquaintance in mind and body are those who played cricket and hockey at school. Hockey after schooldays may be inadvisable, but parental authority and public opinion can settle that question." That young women who motored from Napier to Wellington and back, in order to see Mr. Irving as Hamlet, must be an enthusiastic Shakespearian student. She left her home at 2 p.m., reaching Wellington at 6; dressed for and witnessed the performance; left at 2.30 a.m., and was back in Napier in time to commence work that morning!