146 



The Review of Reviews. 



ninnsion over there,' asked the lady, poiiituig to a 

 very beautiful building. 'That,' said the angel, ' is 

 for your charwoman.' ' My charwoman,' said the 

 lady. ' If you have such a palace for a charwoman, do 

 show me what you have prepared for me.' \Vhere- 

 upon the angel led her a long way oft" to a very 

 poor quarter, and showed her a very small shanty. 

 ' There is your home,' said he. ' That,' said she, turn- 

 ing up her nose in contempt, ' is that all you have for 

 me?' 'I am very sorry, madam,' said the guide, 

 ' but we have done the best we can with the material 

 you have sent up to us during your earthly life.' So 



" Fakir Singh." 

 Commissioner Bootli-Tiicker ami liis wife. 



it is with the Indian Government, they do the best 

 they can with the material they have to hand." 



" Now about Mr. Begbie," said I. 



" Oh," said Fakir Singh. " They are his own ideas 

 which he has expressed in his own way. We have no 

 responsibility for them. I told him many times that 

 he was wrong, but it is one thing to tell a man he is 

 wrong, and another thing to make him believe it, and I 

 seem to have failed with Hegbie. He has been very 

 kind, and I want to say no more about him excepting 

 this : I wish he had said more about the work and 

 le^s about me." 



ORIENTAL VIEW OF WESTERN WOMAN. 



In the Modern Revinc for January, Har Dayal sets 

 out to prove that there is not much to choose for 

 women between East and A\'est. The fine talk of 

 Europeans and Americans about the superior position 

 of women in the West is, he says, simple falsehood. 

 " As rejards woman, man is the same gross, brutal 

 egoist everywhere." Beneath all disguises peers forth 

 " the same old figure of the unchivalrous, disdainfiil, 

 indifferent man-brute, and the stunted, weak, timid, 

 dependent and ignorant slave, woman." The boasted 

 higher position of woman in the West is a myth. 



"one continual crucifixion." 

 In the middle and upper classes, says the writer, 

 the life of a woman between the age of fifteen and 

 her death is one continual crucifixion. With the all- 

 important question of marriage, the tragedy of 

 woman's life begins. It is a sadder tragedy in the 

 West than in the East, for in the East the duty of 

 finding a breadwinner falls on the girl's parents. 

 Education, accomplishments, deportment, are all 

 intended to fit the woman for the marriage market. 



MARRI.\GE BY HUNT OR PURCHASE. 



Marriage is secured by v woman in Europe by a 

 hunt or by purchase : — 



No pen can describe tlie anguisli of those women wlio cannot 

 find purchasers in the marliet or who fail to bag some game 

 in this hunt. They are stranded, and no one pities them. 

 Their lot is one of terrible hardship in these upper classes. 

 'I'liey become mere human wrecks, tlie refuse of the market, 

 which the managers throw into the garbage box. 



Is not the condition of the Oriental woman, who finds a hiis- 

 Ijand, a home, and assured maintenance provided for her as 

 soon as she reaches maturity, a hundred times better than 

 that of these pitiable scramblers in the mr.trimonial market, 

 where, to add to their troubles, the supply far exceeds the 

 demand? 



THE PROFESSIONAL WOMAN. 



M. Let ourneau pronounces true marriage by pur- 

 chase to be more common in France than elsewhere. 

 The economic emancipation of woman appears to the 

 writer a confession of failure :^ 



This .advancing civilisation must drag her in the mire c( 

 modern commercialism ; she must also learn to lie and cheat, 

 to haggle and calculate, to buy in the cheapest and sell in the 

 dearest market. This is what this boasted emancipation of 

 woman in the professions really means. But there are no traces 

 of the immense superiority over the Turkish women that some 

 people ascribe to the educated ladies of ihe West. They aie 

 all alike ns yd. They all chatter trifles. They are all 

 credulous and shallow-brained. There is no great difference 

 between the East and the West, or even between Africa and 

 Kurope in this respect. 



THE DEPTH OF WORKING WOMEN'S WOE. 



Working women suflTer still more : — 



The life of the w omen of the working-classes is worse than 

 that of helots. Girls of tender age are overworked in factories 

 like be.asts of burden. . . . No Turkish woman or Soudanese 

 slave le.ids such a life of unremitting toil and brutish squalor. 

 This is almost Ihe nadir of /iiiiiiati lii-graJalioii, and it is (ound 

 in the West, which is said to honour woiran. 



The writer adds that the darkest night is just 

 before the dawn. 



L 



