452 



The Review of Reviews. 



WIVES WHO WORK WITH THEIR 

 HUSBANDS. 



Rudolph Du Cordova sketches in IVonMn 

 aL Home the activities of several famous wives 

 and their husbands. Mrs. Ayrton, Lady 

 Hug-gins, and Madame Curie, together with 

 their husbands, were discoverers in the realms 

 of science. The bulk of the article is, however, 

 devoted to co-workers in the field of literature. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Askew, Mr. and Mrs. William- 

 son, Mr. and Mrs. Egerton Castle, and Mr. 

 and Mrs. Leighton will be familiar, through 

 their work, to the novel reader. Mr. and Mrs. 

 •Askew had only had one story each published 

 before their marriag^e. They went on working 

 along their own individual lines for about a 

 year : — 



Mr. Askew was doing .1 lot of writing for Household 

 Words, which was then under the proprietorship of Mr. 

 Hal! Caine, and naturally Mrs. Askew took a great deal 

 of interest in it. About a year after they had been 

 married it occurred to them that it would be pleasant to 

 work together, since their tastes were so strikingly simi- 

 lar. They began with short stories, in which they have 

 been .is successful as they have been prolific, and con- 

 tributed practically a new story every week to Household 

 Words. A little later they thought they would try their 

 hands at serial stories. The first one they did was 

 accepted and was published in the Evening News under 

 the title of " Gilded London." So great was its success 

 that they received orders for a second. 



Both Mr. and Mrs. Askew dream the plots 

 on which many of their stories are founded : — 



One of these was "The Baxter Family." So marked 

 is this gift that when they want a plot for a new story 

 it is no unusual thing for Mrs. Askew to say to herself 

 on going to bed -. " Vou will wake up to-raorrow with 

 your plot," and she does. It must, however, be told 

 immediately, or it would be forgotten. These plots are 

 always rapidly w-ritten down, and it has happened over 

 and over again that the plot for a long serial has been 

 practically set down in' one sitting. 



LABOUR AND WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 



Writing in the October number of the E??.ir- 

 lishit'oman on the By-Klections and Woman 

 .Suffrage, Mr. Philip Snowdon claims that the 

 Liberals have lost, and know they have lost, two 

 seats lately on this question of Woman .Suffrage 

 — Crewe and ^Tidk)thian. 



True, the policy of supporting Lrdwnir has not 

 succeeded in securing the return of any of the 

 Labour c.indidates supporled, but the active 

 association of the woman suffragists with one 

 of the candidates in the contest has had the 

 effect of raising the Woman Suffrage question 

 to one of the main issues of the campaign. Not 

 only has the Labour candidate thus been com- 

 pelled to give prominence to the question in his 

 speeches, but the rival Liberal candidate, and, 

 indeed, the Libeml and Unionist Parties, could 

 not help paying some attention to it, because the 



interest of the electors has been aroused. At 

 these two elections the Labour candidates pro- 

 mised and announced that they would vote 

 against the Reform Bill unless women were in- 

 eluded, and were therefore forced to justify their 

 policy to the electorate. In these and other 

 by-elections Mr. Snowden says the meetings of 

 the women suffragists were far and away the 

 largest and most successful in the campaign, 

 and he asserts that both at Crewe and in Mid- 

 lothian the defeat of the Liberal was due to their 

 efforts. Moreover, the effect of the women's 

 work was recognised by the other two parties. 

 It is known in the Liberal Whip's oflRce, and, 

 adds Mr. Snowden, it will deter Liberal inem- 

 bers from voting against the Woman Suffrage 

 .Amendment to the Reform Bill. The policy of 

 supporting Labour leaves the Labour Party in 

 Parliament no option but to refuse to have the 

 Reform Bill unless the Bill gives votes to 

 women. This, at any rate, is the policy decided 

 on at the Labour Party's Conference and at its 

 bv-elections. 



THE YEAR'S HARVEST OF FURS. 



In Harper's for October Mr. F. E. Schoon- 

 over gives a vivid account of his visit to the 

 depot of the Hudson's Bay Company on Long 

 Lake, when the Indian chief brought the furs 

 which he and his tribe of five hundred had taken 

 during the season. The chief came at the head 

 of a stately procession of canoes. When they 

 had come into the house the Indians sat down 

 before the Factor : — 



The Factor now enacts the prelude to a dramatic play 

 that proceeds almost without words. To each of the 

 hunters he hands a plug of cheap, black tobacco and 

 a package of sulphur matches — all a gift from the great 

 trading company. Immediately pipes are filled with 

 the sticky tobacco cut from the plug. Nothing is said 

 wliile the pipe of welcome is smoked. It is a very 

 serious matter, the smoking of a pipeful of that tobacco. 

 It requires constant attention and the entire bundle of 

 matches. Finally the chief knocks his pipe free from 

 ashes and puts it carefully away. Then he cuts the 

 caribou thongs from one of the bark-covered bales, and 

 spreads upon the counter a pile of raw furs — his own 

 personal hunt, made since New Year's Day. The Factor 

 begins at the top of the chief's pile and first counts 

 two hundred and fifty musk-rats. He thrusts his hand 

 in each pelt, judges of the value, and gives the amount 

 10 the bookkeeper, who sits close by. Each pelt in the 

 catch is examined carefully and passed to the outpost 

 Factor, who piles them on the counter. 



The chief then, as is befitting his station, trades in 

 the pelts of all who made the hunt with him. 



The trading is done. The light-hearted trappers 

 depart with their cheap finery. With the passing of the 

 last the Factor doses the door and turns the key. In 

 the quiet of the late afternoon the pelts of furs — some 

 of them worth more than their weight in gold — are 

 carried to the store-room above. There, under the 

 shingled roof and the adz-marked rafters, are skins upon 

 skins, great piles of them that mount shoulder high 

 into the dimly lighted attic. 



