The appointment of a Royal Commission, to inquire into the working of the police force, as 'a sequel to the Chiozza-Mone} Savidge case in London, is having some remarkable reperct: sions, A debut nite) tial lady members of Parliament waited on the Home Secretary lately and impressed on him the necessity for more, and better componei of the constabequipped, women police as a
Sir William Joynson-Hicks was sympathetically di posed to the recommendation put forward by the deputation. "It is a good time to raise the matter" he so shed them to give further consideration to sugges The invasi by women of the thought id to the other trades professions, once
is one of the most striking chai jacteristies of the last two decades. Time was, and that not so long ago, when a woman in an office in Shanghai was as ra as an angel's visit and now it would be difficult to find an office that is without them. It ix the same in every department of the world's work. Doctors, lawyer preachers; everywhere woman has foreed an' entrance and everywhere she has justified her presence. One bold woman, a peeress in her own right, even claims the privilege of a seat in the House of Lords: perhaps the most exclusive assembly in the world. She has not yet succeed. Jed but "Whoever hath the power or skill to stem the torrent of a woman's will?" It is a safe guess that her feminine fence will wear down the opposi tion of even the diehard peers.
another poet said of the f ings of humanity, "Is a creature of such hideous mien, that to be hated needs but to be. seen.
"But seen too oft, familiar with her face, we first' abhor, then pity, then embrace."
This has been the history of all past opposition to woman's di mands for extended opportuni ties of service and it will be surprising if it be otherwise in this ease.
Of all the different spheres in which woman has elaine right to exercise her - abi none seems more reasonable than a place amongst the guardians of law and order. Women crime mals, though less numerous than men, are, still, numbers to require maintain No prisons and women warders to
one will dispute that there are frequent instances when a_woman, in difficulty on the stiver, would rather appeal to a woman constable than toa man, Where a woman has to be interrogated in the police station it is almost imperative that there should be an official of her own sex present at the interview. We need not suppose, as we do not suggest, that where this is not the case anything unpleasant might occur. But a woman, suddenly brought into the embarrassing position of being cross-questioned in the forbidding precincts of the charge room, should be afforded the comfort and countenance of one of her own sex during the ordeal, This is s0 self-evident that there is no doubt that some such regulation will be brought into force as a result of the deliberations of the Royal Commission recently appointed was a characteristically feminine touch that the deputation of ladies Laid great stress on the unbecoming nature of the uniform in which women police are now dressed. "The poor things look so. self-consol said Miss Helen Wilkinson, Even a mere man is disconcerted if compelled to appear in public unsuitably clothed and for this reason we garb the minister in gown and give the barrister a wig. What a sinister addition is that when the judge solemnly assumes the black cap at the conclusion of a trial for murder!
The soldier puts on a certain dignity when he dons his uniform and the ladies were certainly right when they demanded that the female contingent of the police force should wear a dress that would not expose them to ridicule, A day or two ago the Chinese press reported the do-of the women's union in Tientsin, This body passed resolutions asking the Provincial Governor strictly to charge all district magistrates (1) to forbid foot-binding, and (2) lacing of the waist, (2) to abolish prostitution and female slavery, (4) provide better conditions' for women workers and (5) employ women in all government offices. In a men's meeting the order of these resolutions would surely have been reversed. Foot-binding and tight lacing would have seemed evils of stich a trifling nature that they would have been placed last on the list But these women, we think right regarded foot-binding, not so mich og a cruel custom as a badge of servitude, Who could official with respect he waddied to her office on deformed fect? It ix evident that when the mind of China's womanhood is enfranchised it will no longer consent to being deformed in body. Self-respect demands a sound body suitably other for the duties it will be called on to perform and east west we find that women are reed on this point.
It is too soon for the question of women police for Shanghai bur when the status of the female branch of the is settled at home something in the same line will have to be looted here. Chinese women, as we have seen, are beginning to lits and it may be that here, as Turkey, the proof the movement for emanci tion will be surprising ly rapid.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.