892 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



Soccmhvr 1, 1013. 



which, he said, the natives called 

 " Petur," and named it " herb of An- 

 gouleme," after his birthplace. 



In an English translation of his 

 work, " Singulariter de la France Ant- 

 arctique," is the following descrip- 

 tion : — 



They gather this herbe very charely (Fr. 

 soinqeusement) and dry it in the shade 

 within their little cabanes or houses. Their 

 maner to use it, is this, they Avrappe a quan- 

 titie of thLs herbe being dry in a leafe of 

 a palme tree which is very greate, and so 

 they make roUes of the length of a candle, 

 and then the fire the one end, and receive 

 the smoke thereof by the nose and by their 

 niouthe. 



In a later work he is very sceptical as 

 to the medicinal properties attributed to 

 it. 



It was not till 1 5(S6 that the first 

 tobacco was brought to England by 

 Drake. Attempts were made to suppress 

 the practice of smoking : " But the cus- 

 tom continued to spread, despite penal- 

 ties, abuses, penal enactments, capital 

 punishment, and, on one occasion at 



least, the ingenious sentence of being 

 eaten alive." 



From Europe the habit has spread all 

 over the world, and is " the unique in- 

 stance in modern times of the world- 

 wide adoption of a custom that origi- 

 nates with a barbarous race." 



The Bulletin of the Imperial Institute 

 contains some interesting notes on the 

 cultivation and preparation of Turkish 

 tobacco. Since 1900 experiments have 

 been carried out m Ireland, under the 

 auspices of the Irish Board of Agri- 

 culture, in order to cultivate Turkish 

 tobacco there ; but hitherto the cost of 

 production has been too great to encour- 

 age farmers to take it up on a large 

 scale The experiments are being con- 

 tinued, however, in the hope that 

 farmers, with their increasing know- 

 ledge of the requirements of the crop, 

 will in time be able to lower the cost of 

 production, and raise the quality 

 of tobacco sufficiently to leave a fair 

 margin of profit. 



THE WOMEN'S MOVEMENT IN GERMANY. 



Women's rights in Germany, says J. 

 F. Mills in the E7tglishwoma7t, are al- 

 most a minus quantity. 



Throughout the greater part of the 

 Fatherland women are still excluded 

 from the sphere of citizenship. Yet here 

 and there women have certain incipient 

 rights. In Prussia, for instance, land- 

 owning women have a vote in the com- 

 munal elections, but it may only be 

 exercised through male representatives. 

 Only in Hanover are landowning women 

 permitted to vote in person. One of the 

 obstacles to women obtaining the muni- 

 cipal franchise is that town councillors 

 have the power to jerr}mander the fran- 

 chise at will. But there are far greater 

 obstacles than this to impede the ad- 

 vance of women. In a land like Prussia, 

 where the ruling passions of the govern- 

 ing class are the lust of power and the 

 exercise of brute force, how can there 

 be any political vista for women? All 

 the same, there are signs of approaching 

 change even in reactionary Prussia. Dis- 

 cussing the attitude of the political 

 parties towards women's enfranchise- 

 ment, the writer shows that the Conser- 



vative Party, which reoresents the land- 

 owning interest, is the most deadly 

 enemy the women's movement has to 

 encounter. Nor is the National Liberal 

 Party — which represents the policy of 

 the industrial capitalists — a friend of 

 women's suffrage. It accepts women's 

 work, but refuses to countenance the idea 

 of women's equality. W^omen also 

 render generous support to the Progres- 

 sive People's Party, but there is a section 

 of this party which cannot be relied on 

 for thorough-going support for votes 

 for women. So far, the Social Demo- 

 cratic Party is the only party which can 

 be depended on to fi-ght for the equal 

 rights of women in every sphere. 



In conclusion, the writer says the 

 guarantee of the ultimate success of the 

 German women's movement is to be 

 found in the fact that it is a vital move- 

 ment, most vital of all as the advance 

 guard, on the higher road to citizenship, 

 of the mighty host of German women 

 and maidens who go out into the world 

 to earn their living — and to one-third of 

 all the human beings in Germany whose 

 work lies within the economic sphere. 



