conceivable that those amongst us who have more coarse, robust, and what might be called agricultural temperaments would inevitably regard finer, softer, more exquisitely delicate and tremulous souls ast ridiculous, contemptible, and even condemnable. Here we have a lady, very aged, very ailing and almost destitute, cheerfully facing hunger and cold and dispensing with every sort of physical enjoyment, whose spirit is so highly wrought and so capable of subtle forms of suffering, that the mental distress caused her by living under the same roof with policemen and other honest working people wholly overrides the material discomfort and suffering which are far more easily apprehended and sympathised with by persons of coarser clay. To those with discernment it is perhaps unnecessary to add a single comment; but I have sadly failed if I have not made it clear that the whole pathos and tragedy which characterise the uncaredfor age and sickness of these gentlewomen lie in the fact that they possess these fine and sensitive natures, whose memories and remembrances of brighter days constitute their keenest pain.

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One theory of mine, more hotly controverted than any, seems to call for another word of defence. I advocated, as a preliminary and effective method of diminishing the struggle for existence of the real bread-winners, the withdrawal of women of means from the labour market-that is from the journeyman labour market, where neither talent nor genius is involved. Miss Orme, who evidently thinks her political economy argument decisive, characterises this as a fallacy.' Briefly stated, her argument is our old familiar friend that wealth employs labour, and that if the directors of a school company have 5,000l. to distribute in salaries, it is of no consequence whether the 5,000l. be pocketed by persons each with 1,000l. a year or by those who have nothing. Miss Orme quotes Professor Cairns: she need not have done so. This is just the sort of orthodox book-learning with which women are crammed at college, where political economy is taught. Does she maintain that it makes no difference to a country whether property is divided between millionaires and serfs, or in more equal shares? Surely too, judged by the hardest scientific rules, in the case of a woman who has already 2001. a year earning 2001. more, the result would not be the same as in the case of the penniless woman earning this salary; because the control over the expenditure in the latter instance would be much more direct than in the former; and the poor woman would be much less likely than her competitor to spend her salary on non-productive luxuries. But forsaking these disputed maxims of Political Economy, let us see how Miss Orme's theory actually does bear upon one particular labour market, the only one I have had under consideration. Supposing a woman with 2001. a year earns as a teacher another 200l.; let it be granted she dresses more expensively, employs a better cook and lives in a finer house, is Miss Orme unable to see that her presence in the

educated women labour market is, as I have stated, prejudicial and mischievous, since she is ousting some poor woman equally capable from occupying this very post? And finally there is a moral argument to this which I can only refer to here, and which possibly Miss Orme would not admit; and that is, that it has a direct and distinct effect upon the sum of human happiness: for the woman who has already an income, and who greedily takes what would be given to an equally able applicant, is directly responsible for the production of individual suffering and class hatred. Those critics who have questioned the soundness of my theory that women with incomes bring down salaries (being able to provide for some part of their living from some other source than their earnings) are recommended to carefully study the excellent introduction to the new Englishwoman's Year Book, by Miss Janes (no partisan of my views), in which she instances 'one great school which never engages a teacher who has not guaranteed private means, because the fees are too low to allow of adequate salaries being paid, and the authorities like to see their teachers suitably housed and dressed.' I would specially recommend this situation, prevailing in every branch of educated feminine work, to the consideration of the Spectator, which, in a set of ingeniously wrong reasonings, endeavours to prove that the presence of these persons with incomes actually raises wages.

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One word remains to be said about the careless and cruel charge of unthriftiness' and 'extravagance' freely passed upon good women who have not only been honourably self-denying but generously helpful to others with intimate claims upon them. Here is an extract from a letter, before whose gentle rebuke those of us who have managed to keep a footing, or who through no moral desert of our own are in the enjoyment of settled incomes, may well bow our heads in silence. The writer, an aged lady of rare intelligence and cultivation, has, I rejoice to say, since the appearance of my original article, been rendered free of care and anxiety for the rest of her life by the kindness of a generous reader of this Review.

There is a passage in the article by Miss Shaw which seems to me to strike the keynote of the modern woman's attitude towards life. It would seem as if to get on as a 'business woman,' and to show the pushing, selfish, aggressive qualities of successful business people, were the highest to which women should aspire. Why should Miss Shaw sneer at the governess who helped her young sister by buying a piano? Perhaps she helped her to obtain a musical education, and at any rate she gave her some happiness, and that is something. Is it wrong to try and contribute to the happiness of those who have such close claims upon us, even at the expense of our self-interest and worldly prudence?

'Will women,' asks Miss Shaw, 'never understand that they cannot both eat their cake and have it, and that the luxury of giving away costs money which, spent in that immediately pleasant fashion, cannot also be spent on the dull purchase of a pension for old age?' Would Miss Shaw care to know (and, as you know, my experience is the rule rather than the exception) that for seven years, whilst I was earning 407. as a teacher in a cheap boarding school, I was giving to my father, who was completely paralysed, 251. a year of it? This 'pleasant

fashion' of giving meant that during all those years I never bought a single article of clothing except boots and one or two other necessaries which I could not myself make. My sewing was done after the children were in bed and on halfholidays.

I was always compelled to take a holiday engagement, and I left the school after seven years with a few pounds in my pocket.

I notice that Miss Shaw finds fault with the grammar of some of the papers sent in by poor ladies, many of whom, no doubt, like myself, though their minds are clear, write with trembling fingers and dim eyes, and I too may be expressing myself inelegantly and incorrectly. But I should like her to put to herself, in as polished a form as she chooses, this question: Does she really think I should have let my father go to the workhouse, and have set aside this sum for my old age?' Many elderly women have had a similar life history to myself, and many who have saved have had long and exhausting illnesses. I think very few have lived self-indulgently.

Let Miss Shaw cast her eyes over the list published last year by the Governesses' Benevolent Institution of the ladies who are compelled in their old age, after years of self-denying toil, to know the sting of charity from public institutions.

No. 15. Age 56. Became a governess for a maintenance and has taught twenty-six years. Ever since her father's death has supported her mother. Suffers from the effects of rheumatic fever.

No. 17. Aged 56. Became a governess owing to the failure and death of her father. Has always helped her two younger sisters. Taught thirty-seven years. Has nothing but 10l. a year and interest on her savings.

No. 25. Aged 64. On the death of her father became a governess. Assisted her mother in educating the younger children, and has since helped her brothers and sisters, one of whom requires help. Her sight is seriously impaired.

No. 157. Aged 76. Taught fifty years. Had to help maintain her parents, a younger sister, and two nieces, besides two orphan pupils left penniless on her hands.

And so on throughout the whole sorrowful scroll in whose bare records lie, for those with eyes to see, life stories of silent and beautiful heroism. The only compensation for saddening the mind and heart with these painful memories is derived from the consciousness that the feeblest pen which writes with feeling and sincerity can do something towards arousing sympathy and a desire to soften suffering; and, as a result of what has appeared, there are now ten ladies who are in receipt for life of pensions varying from 58. to 108. per week, one lady, Mrs. Llewellyn, having charged herself with four pensioners. In each instance, with one exception, where the giver has insisted on remaining unknown to those he is caring for, the donor of the annuity and the recipient are in personal communication, with, I venture to think, mutual benefit. Other ladies have undertaken to make gifts of clothing and country produce, flowers, and books; and a lonely infirm creature has, to her immense pleasure, been

visited by a sympathetic lady living in Kensington, and taken out for drives.

Almost any sort of attention unobtrusively and delicately rendered is acceptable: and one old lady, partly paralysed, without a relation in the world, and living on what she can earn by her needle (the case is known to Miss Smallwood), is even glad of a kind, cheerful letter. I may say here that I have learned within the last few weeks that the distress is even more widespread and poignant than that presented by me, and that there are scores of ladies who would thankfully accept 2s. 6d. a week, and be substantially helped thereby. I cannot myself either receive or distribute funds; but I will gladly put any one willing to help in the most modest way in communication with one or other of those patient dumb sufferers, who sorely need help and. are likely to need it but for a few brief years.

It has been suggested to me that I should approach Her Majesty, and obtain her co-operation in some scheme by which part of the enormous funds now being collected for the hospitals and district nurses (both benefiting a class for which an immense amount of charity is given) should be utilised for pensions and homes foraged gentlewomen. I believe that the sympathy of the Queen, herself well on in years, could without difficulty be obtained; and that, if the matter were taken up by a person of standing, we might in this Jubilee year see the initiation of a movement whose purpose would be to give shelter to the large army of gentle, blameless ladies thrown upon the rough world in their pathetically helpless and ailing old age.

FRANCES H. Low.

WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE AGAIN!

THE maxim that the second reading of a Bill in Parliament amounts to the acceptance of the principle of the measure certainly seems a fine piece of irony in regard to Mr. Faithfull Begg's achievement on the 3rd of February 1897. For it would be hard to discover in the Bill he then carried to its second reading any definite principle of action-except indeed the principle that any people who wish very much for anything ought, for that very reason, to have it.

This simple little Bill does not propose to enfranchise women as women. Its basis is not that women in general, inasmuch as they can read and understand the newspapers, can direct the politics of this Empire just as well as men in general-that the female sex has quite as large a stake in national affairs as the male-that there are great and crying wrongs and evils, pressing peculiarly and exclusively on women, which can and will be redressed and removed only when there is a female vote to turn elections, and return members to Parliament to legislate at its dictation. No; no such reasons as these are put forward. Women are considered simply as they are (or are not) householders disencumbered of any male associate, upon whom the State makes the same money demands as if they were men. If they are in this position, they ought to return members to Parliament. It is a very simple thing; why make any fuss about conceding it? The goose, it is argued, pays rates and taxes just as does the gander; therefore, the goose is, in every other conceivable light, socially and politically, exactly the same as the gander; parity of reasoning applies to them both; in a word, to reverse a venerable proverb, what is sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose. It is true that what is sauce for all ganders is only to be sauce for certain selected geese; but the principle of selection is beautifully simple, it is based merely on contribution to rates and taxes. These cash payments are the only nexus.' They bind you to the body politic; they efface the disability which still attaches to you as a mere woman. If a principle is wanted, this is the one and all-sufficient principle. No other considerations are worth anything.

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Upon this locus standi, then, as from the area of a pockethandkerchief, it is with all light-heartedness proposed to initiate a