IRature IRotes : 
tCbe Selbornc Society’s fiDagasfne 
No. ii6. AUGUST, 1899. Vol. X. 
SELBORNIANA. 
Our Balance Sheet for 1898. — Owing to a mistake in 
transcription, for which our Hon. Treasurer was in no way 
answerable, the balance sheet printed in our last issue was 
erroneous, so a correct one is here given. 
The International Congress of Women and Dress in 
Relation to Animal Life. — We are glad to be able to report 
the discussion which occupied the attention of the social section 
of the International Congress of Women on July 3. 
The Duchess of Portland, who presided, said that she had 
to plead for a simple and old-fashioned cause. Every liberal 
effort on the part of women suffered from the fact that they 
were suspected, without practical reason, of never meaning 
what they said. If they proposed the removal of a pressing 
and admitted grievance, they were met with the criticism that 
what they advocated would only be used as a stepping-stone to 
something very undesirable, if not positively dangerous. Luckily 
for them, their critics must stick to the point, for there was only 
one to urge. Moreover, they were a homogeneous body, if a 
small and unimportant one. They had none of the differences 
between the van and rear that sometimes threw the whole main 
body into confusion. It had often been urged by critics and 
opponents, unchivalrous enough not to give them the benefit of 
the doubt, that women would cease to pity when they came to 
• power, and would assimilate the qualities on which men relied 
in the battle of life. Their presence showed that if they were 
to learn liberty, they did not mean to forget kind-heartedness 
and love. No further apology was necessary for pressing the 
cause on the attention of every one possessing womanly sympathy 
and spirit even in the midst of higher themes and more urgent 
questions. 
