448 



Thk, Revihw of Reviews. 



WOMEN CONQUERORS OF 

 THE AIR. 



In the September number of Lectures pour 

 Tous, M. Armand Rio records the impressions 

 of some of the Airwomen of To-day. 



A Professor of Science at Vienna said, not long 

 ago, that women were in many ways better 

 fitted than men for aviation. Their bodies are 

 lighter, and they bear high altitudes better 

 because their lungs require less oxygen. They 

 resist with extreme sensibility rises in tempera- 

 ture and caprices of the wind, and they possess 

 intuition in a marvellous degree. Add to this 

 their intrepidity and their passion for anything 



allowed to bless her machine, and at the same 

 lime he presented her with a little medal of St. 

 Christopher. Mdlle. Marie Marvingt was the 

 first woman to obtain a certificate for piloting 

 a monoplane. She made for herself a record by 

 remaining in the air the best part of an hour 

 in a glacial wind. No other " sport," she says, 

 offers in the same degree so much sense of 

 effort, or energy spent in a useful cause ; it is 

 the best school imaginable for endurance and 

 courage. She does not know fear. Her ambi- 

 tion is to become a military pilot, and she is 

 now preparing for it. The late Miss Quimby 

 distinguished herself by crossing the Channel 

 from Dover to Calais. The 

 death-roll, alas ! already in- 

 cludes several women. 



-^-.. 



-'^i?;: 



. V^i^j^ - 



Death : 



A Gooa Summer. ,' 



' Soon I shall have a. hundred in mylflying 



trap, 



new, and one has enough to explain their 

 enthusiasm. Just four years ago the first baptism 

 of air was given to a woman, and imme- 

 diately a number of others followed. But the 

 r6le of mere passenger did not suffice for 

 feminine ambition. Women's great dream was 

 to acquire the certificate of pilot. Madame de 

 Laroche is said to have been the first woman to 

 obtain it, but now from all quarters of the 

 horizon have come a number of rivals, and there 

 is not a meeting in which women do not take 

 part. 



Mdlle. Hdlfene Dutrieu has made many flights 

 with her Farman biplane. Her most cherished 

 experience was her great success in August, 

 1910, when she ascended from Blankenbcrghe, 

 and succeeded in doubling the belfry of Bruges. 

 On one occasion, when she was about to fly 

 at .'\rgentan, an old village curd begged to be 



r THE EMPRESS 

 DOWAGER OF JAPAN. 



The Japan Magazine, in its 

 September issue, has a note on 

 the Empress Dowager of 

 Japan. 



As a young monarch, the 

 Emperor Mutsuhito, in 1869, 

 asked Princess Haruko to be his 

 wife and to share the light of 

 the Throne and the destiny of 

 the Empire, and for over forty 

 years they have grown old 

 together, beloved of the people 

 and the symbol of the Japanese 

 family. Her love of art and 

 literature, and her enlightened 

 views of life, accorded well 

 with the Emperor and her 

 exalted position. Their wedded 

 life is stated to have been ex- 

 ceedingly happy. The Empress had any- 

 thing but an easy r6le to play. For 

 the first time in Japanese history the 

 consort of the Emperor emerged from 

 the seclusion of the Palace to the place 

 usage assigns to her in the West ; and it ir- 

 agreed, on all hands, that she performed the 

 duties assigned to her with an earnestness and 

 sympathy which won her the hearts of all her 

 subjects. She is greatly interested in the Red 

 Cross organisation. The raising of the status 

 of women in Japan owes much to her, and she 

 has always had the cause of women's educa- 

 tion at heart. 



(Berlin. 



In tTie Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review 

 Sir Roper Lethbridge laments that India has 

 been lost sight of in the discussions on our with- 

 drawal from the Sugar Convention. 



