Woman's World

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 272, 22 April 1914, Page 6

Woman's World

WO.MEN AND PlIlbON REFORM

London, .March 4

A mass meeting is tu be lieid in New York, which has been, called by the metropolitan section 01 the women's department of tlie National Civic Jvilur.--tion, to rouse nubile sentiment, in favor of legislation lor prison relorm, and to formulate a deiinite programme of legislative action in New I'ork.

Numbers of prison officials and several public men have promised to deliver speeches on the need for investigation and betterment.

LUCKY NORWEGIAN WOMJiX

An admirable equality, not neeessarilv owing to the vote, which lias not boon exercised for very long, but all part ol the "women movement' - towards a more desirable state of affairs, exists in Norway, where practically all the professions are now open to women except the priesthood and rlie army lion and women are educated together at 'school, and college. They form clubs and societies together, both for sports, pleas lire, and, serious objects. Women sit on juries, and there is now one lady judge.

PRAISE FOR THE CINEMA

Interesting ami emphatic testimony was given a few days ago in the evidence of a police superintendent when, the question of granting seven day licenses to a numjer 01 provincial picture palaces was under consideration. He had no hesitation in saying, as it is significant to remember do many East End social workers, that he wouid much rather see tlie picture palaces open on .Sundays than Shut, as they keep people <... the "streets and out of the public hou.ies, and that, since they have been open on Sunday evenings there had been a notable decrease in open crime of all kinds in his districts.

DIVORCE FOR THE POOR.

A number of new rules relating to divorce has ocen drafted by a committee composed of the Lord" Chancellor, several judges and members of the Bar, and, amongst others, these provide that poor persons may in future receive free legal assistance in the preparation ami conduct of their case by means of ;•, panel of legal .men willing to volunteer for the work, and the raising of a fund is suggested for the payment of out-oi-pockot expenses of i lie petitioners. The most important cha:i'-;e, so far as divorce is concerned, is the establishment of standard of means. I'mier the old rule it was laid down thai liie means must not exceed £25. Now tie' poor litigant may possess. £SO worth i.-l property, and in special cases, £ICO worth,

An ordinary divorce case costs £45 to £CO undefended.

CURFEW BELL, MM CHILDREN'.

It has been suggested I hat Instead, ol compelling policemen ol:' duty to be jndc/ors by ten o'clock (as W'c.st Kuss.'X has just decided!) a curfew bell should be instituted in every neighborhood for young children. This :s don. in many of the principal towns in America, and

any child found in tlie streets within a certain time after it has been rung is taken up by the police and its parents prosecuted. It would be a line thing, according to the outsider, to set such a by-law in force m the East End, where at ten o'clock and later children play ii> noisy hordes in the dreary streets. It would be a much finer thing to'help set machinery in motion that would insist on better housing conditions ior the po.ir and begin reform in all the habits of 'East Enders at the right end.

CLUB i'Oß2s A VEAR.

If it is thought worth wliuVto chronicle it, there is no doubt that historians will ue able to chronicle later tnatj til. 1 last decade of the nineteenth century nu remarkable for the immense spi-ca.: of the clul) movement in London, and. indeed, all over England, amongst women. In the multitude of organisations that exist is one particularly worth study—the Alexandra Club, in the busy thoroughfare of Edgewarc Road, which has a membership of nearly 70!) girls n every sort of employment, the niajoriw being domestic servants who come to liie elub on their "evenings out." They can obtain good and very cheap meals at the buffet, and there are. cubicles wuerc members can stay for a holiday, or while looking ;or situations. There are also sociable club rooms, work rooms a,id library. The subscription is 2s a year, and the club is always open, a convenience not to be looked for in West End institutions, which generally close for at least a fortnight a year for spring cleaning.

INJURIOUS FOILED 11 ILK

The results of an exhaustive investigation, extending over many years by a Air Robert Monti, in England, will be .it value to mothers and tno e who have tlie care of young ciiildren all over the world, though New Zealand mothers. who may call in the aid of a. Plimket nurse, and who may always have tie advice of the Society for the Proinoti m of the Health of Women and Children - one that, unfortunately, has no paralW here—probably already are. acquainted with many of its findings. The two principal investigations point to the conclusion that tuberculosis is not conveyed by milk from cattle to ■■hunnn beings; and that sterilised or eonden-ci milk definitely predisposes children i'e". upon it to tubercular infection. It has been proved by seientilic investigations carried out at the Vincent Square, Infants' Hospital, London, thai boiled milk, as many mothers know. i. responsible for the most dangerous fiu-nis of infantile diarrhoea. .Milk is liable to contamination by specific ducing organisms, such as tlie typho.d and dipthcria bacilli. The lull "vie bacillus is not usually found oi rii' l : unless tue udder of flic, cow is tuhenvlous, and the milk of the cow suflVviiej from a diseased udder should be. sternly prohibited as unfit for human consumption

Tuberculosis unionist babies is very ruri!, but carefully compiled .-t;il i^tUprove that the number of those contracting the infection steadily increases ;;» to nliont ten years of age. Whether hovine tuberculosis is communicable to human beings is a very debatable pea.. but hundreds of children are fed for years on milk from tuberculoid cows without any marked cH'ecf.

Milk, Mr Mond points out, changoit.s composition from the time oi calving, -and great dill'ei*.itiation should he made between milk for infants and Inordinary milk for any human h<'ing.Tlic-e changes are consonant with the requirements of the calf for whose heiielit tiie milk is produced. Humanised milk does not appear to be generally known here.