WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 146, 7 November 1912, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen") THE MODERN WOMAN ADDRESS BY BISHOP CROSSLEY. A sermon on "The Modern Woman" was preached on Sunday night at St. Sepulchre's Church, Auckland, by the Anglican Bishop of Auckland (Dr. Crossley). The sermon was intended as a preface to the Girls' Friendly Society conference week. In his opening remarks, Dr. Crosslev stated that we were living in an age pf societies. The old religious communities were being supplanted by societies with initiative aims. There weru societies against drunkenness, war, gambling—in fact, against everything except lying. His Lordship said ' there were protective societies, t<ft, but the : onljt society for the women of : |he future was the Girls' Friendly Society. The Bishop said there were those who deprecated the fuss made about the modern woman. Some maintained that woman's place in Nature was unalterable and that the modern w<sman was only a phase which would rectify itself. "The modern woman," the Bishop said, "is divisable into two classes—the unemployed and the employed. Those who are not wage-earners by necessity think that the emancipation of women began through them." The Bishop argued that the contrary was the case. The emancipation of women could be traced from the wage-earn-ing class of women. To prove this he showed how sick nurses vindicated a new position for women in paid occupations, and how their inevitable reception into the medical profession was quickly followed by their invasion of the office and I the telephone Toom. Not without a great struggle did women win their way to the front in education. In New Zealand it looked more than likely that they would hold their own. "This forced entrance into competition , with man," he continued, "has changed woman's sphere. Woman cannot jostle man in all walks of life without demanding the same freedom and right, but there is this great distinction to be remembered—the wage-earning women create their I own spheres of activity, especially in J me.dicine and education. The non-wage-earners do not create their own spheres. They seek to be rivals of men. Witness the formation of women's clubs, the forced athleticism of girls and women." The Bishop said lie was satisfied with woman's right and ability to use the platform. Logically the right to vote followed this concession, but that would inevitably lead to the right to Sit in B Parliament, which he did not think suitable. ''Two examples of the modern woman," continued the Bishop, "have lately been before the eyes of the world —the suffragettes in England and the Waihi women in New Zealand. The former are not starving or ill-used, but preach the gospel of destruction of property and assault to secure a political end. The probable outcome of their gospel would be anarchist outrages like those in Russia, or the atrocities of the Turks in Bulgaria. The Waihi women, though using language that does licit make pleasant reading, do just "what their' sister suffragettes do in supporting the wageearners. It muS't be remembered that the women of New Zealand have liberty, a certain freedom froiji competition, and the vote. Common sense in New Zealand would counter the extravagant theory of the equality of the sexes. I do not want to see the equality of the sexes. I want to see woman remain superior to man in those qualities which i he lacks, and which are so essential to i her own womanhood. These qualities, which can be summed in the words,, • 'home, wife, mother and child,' can be II best trained and cared for in the woman . of to-morrow by sympathetic co-opera-tion and help. This is the aim and ob- . ject of the Girls' Friendly Society." AMERICAN MILLIONAIRESS' NEW SENSATION ; PROTEST AGAINST OSTENTATION. Mrs. 0. H. P. Belmont, the multi-mil-lionairess patron of American suffragists, , gave a ball recently to Newport's "Four . Hundred" as a suffragist protest against • the recent "vulgar flaunting of their : wealth" by "Newport's idle rich." The ball was in honor of Miss Inez Mulhol- . land, a young Social Suffragist and Vassar graduate, who has been working this ! summer among Newport's society leaders under Mrs. Belmont's patronage, hoping ■ to convert them to "bettej things." Instead of the lavish displays made rej cestly by Mrs. Stuyveaant Fish and Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt (who spent respec- ' ; tively £20,000 and £30,000), the Belmont party was marked by extreme sim- : plicity, while giving Newport's jaded nerves a new thrill. Mrs. Belmont en--gaged for the evening the Eastons Beach at Newport, which is a miniature Coney ;; i Island, designed for excursionists and ' thoss, at the unfashionable end of the : social scale. It includes sand and surfS bathing, a dancing hall, a merry-go-round, a shooting gallery, and similar . attractions. Most of the guests arrived '' in splendid ball dresses and the same priceless' jewels they wore at the Stuy- , vesant Fish and Vanderbilt balls, except a few who appeared in bathing suits and , spent the evening in the water and lolling on the sands in the moonlight. The . others at first feared they would ruin / their dresses, b'y coming in contact with the pleasures of their poorer fellows, but , the strains of the "carrousel" music warmed them, and soon Newport's ultrafashionable residents were disporting . themselves like visitors to England's Southend; They flocked on the merry-go-round, used the rifle range, took 'Aunt Sally" 1 shies, dropped nickels in slot machines,' danced, and otherwise entered into the Spirit of the evening. ■ Those who got a brass ring on the •: ''carrousel";' and hit bull's-eyes received tin buckets' and shovels as prizes, with which" they rushed; to ,the sands to dig. Never before had, so much wealth and so many handsomely gowned women been seen trying to seize the merry-go-round rings and rejoicing in/, the pleasures of the simple life. The collation was in . keeping, with; the entertainments, and ( insisted' principally of sausages and mashed .potatoes 1 , with bper, while out of pity- for: those: unable to. take this fare, chicken salad and champagne were also aprved. 1 Mrs. Belmont employed the ordinary colored department of a plebeian ; restaurant at Eastons Beach to do the rooking; instead of an expensive caterer, and 50 waitresses, instead. of the welltrained men servants to which Newport millionaires are accustomed, served the repast. The guests.pr ; onoupced the ball a great success, and are expected to discuss it for a long time as their delightful experiment in sociology!