LADY GUIDES FOR LONDON.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2605, 23 March 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

LADY GUIDES FOR LONDON.

In one of the saloons of the Royal Society of British Artists, in Suffolkstreet, Pall-mall, about two hundred people, for the most part well-dressed ladies, assembled on Monday night, January 21at., to hear something further about the projected Lady Guide Association, Colonel Lord Hay of Kinfauns took the chair, and opened the procedings in a speech which was a model of brevity. Miss Edith Davis, the lady who originated the idea of organising the lady guides, occupied a seat on the platform ; but deputed the reading of her written address, explaining the details of the scheme and refuting the comments of cynical critics, to an ardent male sympathiser, Mr Stewart Walther. In the course of this very optimist address, it was suggested as being more than probable that the association would be the means of reviving trade generally. Dr Kate Mitchell made short work of many of the objections which have been urged Against the scheme and suggested that, however mnch poople might disapprove of lady doctors or lady county councillors, they ought not to deprecate the employment in the way proposed of the vast army of educated but poverty-stricken women in our midst, who plead only for the opportunity of doing useful and decently-paid-for work, instead of being made victims of the " fiweating" system. She deuiurred, however, to the proposal to submit the lady guides, as proposed by the scheme, to an examination. From personal experience, she was tired of the examination system. Miss Edith Luptou declared, inter alia, " for n long tioio women had been dissatisfied with themselves and their surroundings, and had not, taking them all round, even given satisfaction to the gentlemen whom they all wished to pleaee." Sho did not actually say that the establishment of the Ludy Guide Association would make women " satisfied with themselves and their surroundings ;" but that, says the reporter, was the inference suggested. The resolutions submitted to the meeting and spoken to by, among others, Mr W. Ernest and Mr Tanqueray, were passed with a rapidity and unanimity that seemed to promise well for Miss Davis'a well-inten-tioned undertaking.