FROM HERE AND THERE

Ladies' Mirror, Volume I, Issue 6, 1 December 1922, Page 16

FROM HERE AND THERE

IX/riSS ‘Ricards, 0.8. E., acts as head gardener in the church grounds ,of St.' John’s, Wimborne, Dorset. “We wonder if any other church in England boasts an 0.8. E. as honorary head gardener?’’ asks the vicar, acknowledging her services in the Parish Magazine. A WRITER in Life (New York) contributes this tribute to Lady Astor’s conquest of the British lion : Hail, beauteous lady, world renowned, And hail to this, your latest capture With Goldcnrod and Roses crowned Who pads at heel and purrs of rapture. ■ - 'L Can this szveet cat with fluffy pate In blissful thraldom to your charms Be the same beast that ramps irate Upon Great Britain’s arms! ’Tis proud indeed zee’ll be some day. Who zvitnessed the incipient staff Of your triumphal march, to say, “We sazu her started down the ages!’’ And by the way, dear, since you’re quite Well headed for the Hall of Fame, Don’t hold your Lion’s leash too tight . Lest he forget he’s tame. ’Tis true he lets you cut his claws And trim his beard or curl or shave, it — And knit zvool mittens for his paws And bob his mane, or marcel-wave it, ' But Lion’s have their limits, take Life’s friendly tip upon the quiet And don’t attempt, for heaven’s sake, To “pussyfoot” his diet! TSTHEN Miss Paterson was in Po- ™ land in connection with Dr. Truby King’s welfare work she was interested in a children’s welfare hospital erected in Warsaw by a Mile. Schauker as a permanent memorial. This Polish lady was a trainee of St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, when recalled home on account of her mother’s illness. Losing both parents —her father was a wealthy merchant —she devoted her life and money to this wonderful hospital, whose work, though somewhat interrupted through war conditions, was still carrying on on English lines. TJIGH up on a great jagged rock AA crest, 9345 feet above sea level, in Colorado, a woman sits watching for forest fires. She is the only woman fire outlook in the world. Miss Helen Dowe is a slim-built woman with keen eyes and a lonely job. She lives in a cabin on the Devil’s Crag, and far below her lies the great range of forest land called the Pike National Forest. She wears high leather boots and breeches like a man, and a short, strong corduroy frock adds to her smart appearance. Her food is taken up to her at regular intervals from the camps below. Every day, especially when the forest fire season has commenced in America, she stands with glasses or telescope at the cabin windows, which are built in all round the square, wooden shelter. This outlook cabin is bolted down to the head of the rock, and contains remarkable instruments, by means of which she* can communicate immediately any suspicion of a fire to the fire-fighters, and locate for them exactly the spot where they should go. BOUT eighty women J.P.’s enXA tered as students the recent Summer School of the National Union of Societies for Equal Citizenship in St. Hilda’s College, Oxford. QUITE a number of young Englishwomen of aristocratic connec-

tion are now writing for the papers. One of the first to launch out in this direction was Lady Violet Greville, and present-day imitators include Lord Gainsborough’s daughter, Lady Norah Bentinck, Lady Kitty Vincent, and Lady Warwick’s daughter-in-law, Mrs. Maynard Greville, formerly Miss Dora Pape. Lady Kitty Vincent, daughter of the Queen’s “lady,” Dowager Lady Airlie, and sister of the present peer, is a clever and versatile writer, whose versatility in her case stands for real excellence.

Her husband is Brigadier-General Berkeley Vincent. "DRINCESS Magaloff, sister-in-law A of the Grand Duke Michael, and once worth millions, and a number of other Russian women of nobility are earning their living as mannequins. Several Russian princesses have become stenographers and chorus girls, while two Hungarian women of royal birth recently took positions as governesses. THE most accomplished linguist _ A among the royal women of Europe is said to be the Dowager Queen Margherita, mother of the King of Italy. She knows French, German, English, Spanish, Greek, Latin, and, of course, Italian. TPHOUGH she is only eighteen years * L of age and has successfully passed the test for a lawyer. Miss Zonola Longstreth, of Little Rock, Ark., is prevented from practising her profession in that State because of her youth. IYTRS. Henry Ford is said to use TA the most luxurious and complete private railway car ever built. COME of the girl experts employed in the United States Treasury Department in Washington are able to count pennies at the rate of 10,000 in forty-eight minutes. A MONG the women outposts of -t*- Empire is Mrs. Mahony, pearler, planter, and general adventurer, of Sudest Island, near New Guinea. She thinks nothing of knocking about the pearling fields in a tiny heaving sailing-cutter or of a seven . days’ tramp into the jungle-clad interior of Papua in search of labourers for her plantations. And she does it alone, save for a few more or less faithful savages. With equal facility she navigates a lugger, doctors an obstreperous motor-boat engine, and handles unruly cannibals.

Once when a native who was wanted for a particularly atrocious murder succesfully defied the Government’s attempts at capture, she went into the jungle, accompanied only by a pair of house-servants, did a fine bit" of tracking and ran down the murderer, who had not suspected danger from a woman. At the point of a rifle she forced him to her house, which was built high off the ground in true tropical fashion, fastened him underneath with a long chain, the other end of

which she brought up through a hole in the flooring and padlocked to her bedpost, and kept him there till the police arrived two days later. A GIRL of 26 is running a plantation alone in one of the wildest and most savage groups of islands. Her father, the original planter, was killed on a labour-recruiting trip to another island, and she took up where he left off. The plantation was but halfgrown, and to have sold it then would

have resulted in a dead loss. The girl decided to bring it to full bearing. “I try to show a brave front when there’s trouble about,” she said when I called at her place recently and asked how she managed to face all those savages alone. “Once the natives thought I was afraid it would be the end of me. But oh, I have been scared to death—inwardly—many a time.” TpHERE is also a dear old lady who A for many years has been the only European on an island in Torres Strait, several days’ journey from the nearest white habitation. Only when the infrequent store-ship arrives does she see someone of her own skin. She is the Government official in charge of the island—governor, registrar, school-teacher, and a dozen other things. Besides isolation she has endured all kinds of privation and danger. There were times when she lay ill to the point of death with only semi-savage islanders to care for her. There were times when bad weather delayed the store-ship and she was forced to subsist as best she could on crude native foods. Once, in the face of a threatened attack by cannibals from the adjacent New Guinea coast, the islanders deserted in their canoes, leaving her alone. All through one dreadful morning she hid above the beach and watched the approach of the attacking canoes, which were almost at the island when they were turned back by the sight of a gunboat’s smoke. The old lady has endured many such things as these; and now, whitehaired and somewhat worn, her one desire is that when she is finally laid to rest it will be in the island she knows so well. IVTISS Mary Grace Anderson is the XTA latest blind girl to receive the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Edinburgh University. She is 23 years old, and has been blind from childhood, yet through the use of the Braille System she has proved herself a most capable pupil in English and French. Later she took up the study of metaphysics, in which she also proved successful. Miss Anderson is also a capable musician, and holds the L.R.A.M. degree for pianoforte playing. For the past two years she has been teaching in the blind school at Edinburgh.