Women Surgeons at the Front

From the Illustrated London News, 29th June 1918.

LADIES' PAGE.

America has decided to send medical women as anaesthetists out to the base hospitals — that is, of course, well behind the firing line.  There is no particular reason why we should not send women surgeons too; the old pretence that women are too nervous, too cowardly and excitable, for dangerous duties is now quite exploded.  In fact, it is recorded that when the unspeakable German military heads sent airmen recently to bomb the hospitals a woman doctor there went on composedly with her operation, though "the instruments were dancing on the table" from the shock of the explosions.  Deeply to be deprecated as I, for one, should think it for women to be added to the ordinary source of military strength in any nation (which would mean in all), there are occasions when every effort must be put forth for our own life and for the liberty of generations to come.  And, after all, the woman who dares death in the operating tent near the front is doing nothing much more heroic than nurses in fever hospitals do constantly at home—or more even than every mother courageously encounters.

TIZ for Conductresses

From Woman's Weekly, 15th June 1918.

"TIZ" Keeps me from Feeling Tired.

TIZ for puffed-up, aching, tender feet, for corns or chilblains, TIZ is glorious! 

When your poor, suffering feet ache from the continual running up and down the stairs, when the leather begins to draw and there is constant friction producing hard skin, corns, and bunions—don't experiment—just use TIZ.  Get instant relief. TIZ puts peace in tired., aching, painful feet.  Ah! how comfortable your boots feel at once.  Run up and down all day long, feet won't hurt you after using TIZ.

Sore, tender, perspiring feet need TIZ, because it's the only remedy that draws out all the poisonous exudations which puff up the feet and cause foot torture. TIZ is the only remedy that takes pain_ and soreness right out of corns, hard skin, and bunions.

Miss A. Forrester, Greenaway, Ascot, writes: "This winter I suffered very much for three months with frost-bite.  I was quite crippled, and unable to wear anything but a very old shoe.  After using TIZ regularly every night and before going out for about ten days I was entirely cured and able to walk again with perfect comfort.

Get a 1/3 box of TIZ at any chemist's or stores.  And send a box to your boy at the Front—he'll appreciate it, sure enough.


"Stairs? Oh, yes ! But use Tiz." 

A Flower Fair and Dirty Milk

From the Illustrated London News, 15th June 1918.

LADIES' PAGE.

A FLOWER FAIR in Trafalgar Square sounds rather like a pantomime dream, but it is to be a reality from June 20 to 26 inclusive.  The British Ambulance Committee, which is entirely British, founded by Mr. Bradley Peyman, has equipped and maintained since that fateful August in 1914, 120 ambulances, constantly employed in carrying French wounded from danger to safety.  Shell-wrecked ambulances must be replaced, and the wear-and-tear of nearly four years made good: and the task is not a small one, so we have the Flower Fair in the Rose month.  Sir H. Veitch, who is responsible for the general direction and arrangement of the floral effects, has evolved the charming idea of erecting little creeper-clad houses to shelter the stalls and their well-known saleswomen.  Gifts of flowers, vegetables, or fruit are begged, and should be sent to Miss Astley, 23A. Bruton Street, London,W.  It is certain that the show will rival some of the best rose exhibitions ever seen.  Amongst those opening it on successive days are Mrs. Lloyd George, the Duke of Portland, Lord Charles Beresford, the Countess of Selkirk, and the Marquise de Chasseloup-Loubat. Famous military bands will perform in the Square.  On Naval Day, June 21, Lady Keyes and the wives of other well-known naval men attend to sell.  On Saturday, the 22nd, prominent Labour representatives intend visiting the Square.  There is no charge for admission.  The British Ambulance Committee beg the British public to make this Flower Fair a huge success; they would have us remember that each flower we buy will help some dying or wounded poilu to safety and rest.


An alarming report has been issued on the dirty and unwholesome state in which a great deal of the milk consumed reaches the public.  Even in the soldiers' hospitals—nay, even at Infants' Welfare Centres—milk was found full of unwholesome bacteria, actual germs of disease, and particles of dirt!  The report adds the information that such contaminated milk is largely prevented from being sold by State supervision in the United States, and that wherever such precautions have been taken a very marked result in diminishing infant mortality has been obtained.  We have a right to claim similar attention from our authorities in a matter where we are unable to protect ourselves.  Milk is the only—that is, the sole—food suitable for infants up to a certain age, six months at least, and a very important, even essential, part of the diet of older ones; and if it is brought to us in the dirty, unwholesome condition described (which is not necessarily perceptible to our own senses in look, smell, or taste) we have no chance of keeping the precious little ones in health.  Why is not that done for us by our public authorities that is done by the American Government in securing clean milk from healthy animals?

Milk contains every element of nourishment; it is not a drink, but a real food, supplying fat, sugar, proteids, and mineral matter in proportions approaching those required by the body.  It ought to be known by all house-wives that skim-milk, when it can be obtained, affords almost as much nourishment as fresh unskimmed milk.  It does not do as food for a young baby, who takes no other sort of food but milk, and so needs it whole; but for older children, as nothing is taken in the skimming but the fat—which they get in other ways—skim-milk is excellent food.  It makes sweetened cereal puddings, of course, but it will also turn into excellent soups, either as it is or half water, thickened either with a little flour, or with oatmeal, sago, tapioca, maize-meal, or rice, seasoned, and flavoured with onion, tomato, potatoes, cabbage, fish, or cheese, according to what we can get at different times.  Salt ought not to be put into a milk soup till it has boiled, or it curdles. A beaten egg is a splendid addition.

Gifts to Penoyre Red Cross Hospital

From the Brecon County Times, June 6th 1918.

PENOYRE RED CROSS HOSPITAL.

To the Editor of the COUNTY TIMES.

Sir,—We offer most grateful thanks to all the following kind friends for gifts:—Collected by Miss Best, May 24th, 20 eggs and parsley, May 30th ½lb. butter, 12 eggs, rhubarb and 12 spring cabbages; Miss Price, Newmarch street, vegetables; 1 hamper, Mrs Garnons Williams; 1 hamper Miss A. deWinton; 2 hampers, Capt. Evans; 2 hampers lettuce, Mrs Gray; 2 hampers, Lord Glanusk (l omitted from last week's list); 182 eggs, per Miss Llewelyn Davies, collected from districts of Devynock, Sennybridge, Senny, Llandilo'rfan; Blaenwysg and Cray; fruit, Mr Hyatt Williams; 35 eggs, Mrs Pugh, Closcede; 1 whole sheep, Mr Howell Powell - a most generous gift.  We also offer grateful thanks to the artistes of the Music in War Time Red Cross Concert Party, who came to the hospital on Friday, May 31st, and gave us a most splendid entertainment.  We wish all our kind friends could have come and enjoyed the first-rate music and ventriloquism.
ALICE M. DEWINTON,
June 3rd, 1918.      Commandant.

[From the start of the war, Miss de Winton had been in charge of the Brecon War Clothing Depot, and issuing requests for knitted articles and very terse patterns for mittens, socks and so on - for instance, here.  By now, she had evidently diversified into running teh Red Cross hospital.]

Married Women

From the Illustrated London News, June 1st 1918

LADIES’ PAGE.

ONE of the reasons that Mr. Gladstone gave for his steady opposition to Women's Suffrage was that "the woman's vote must lead to the woman's seat in Parliament".  That some women would try to make the one lead to the other might, indeed, be reasonably anticipated; and the sequence of events has not long tarried.  The lady still known at her own request as "Miss Mary MacArthur," though she is the wife of Mr. Anderson. M.P., has been formally adopted as the candidate of the Labour Party for a Midland borough.  It is by no means a necessary consequence that those having a right to vote should also have a right to stand for election, for the Church of England clergy have always been entitled to vote but ineligible for sitting in Parliament.  It might be thought that this particular candidate would meet with a further difficulty owing to her continuing as a married woman to use her maiden name.  This was settled, however, by Mrs. Fenwick Miller’s election to the London School Board under the same circumstances.

Her return was objected to on the ground that she had not been correctly described on the nomination paper; but the Law Officers of the Crown, to whom the question was referred as one relating to a public election, stated that there is no law in this country compelling a woman to take her husband's surname.  That lady, however, adopted the usual prefix for a married woman;  "Miss" Mary MacArthur, and another well-known follower of the example, "Miss" Violet Markham —sister of the late Sir A. Markham, M.P., and wife of Mr. Carruthers—have continued to use not only their maiden names, but also, what is another question, the prefix of "Miss," which is universally understood to mean that the person so addressed is not married.

All such social customs, however, are matters of habit, based on convention.  In Spain, married women continue to use their maiden names, with the husband's added—"Mrs. Smith and Jones," as we might say—and the children take both parents' names.  Scottish women's maiden names are invariably used in legal documents, and until recently they were often called by the same name after marriage as before.  To give only two instances where the sons of women so called became famous—Sir James Barrie, in his Life of his own mother, calls her "Margaret Ogilvie," never "Mrs. Barrie"; and Sir William Chambers, founder of the well-known publishing house, says of his grandmother, "According to an old custom in Scotland, she was, though married, known only by her maiden name, which was Margaret Kerr."  In Alsace it is usual for the family names of a married couple to be combined, and both spouses use the joint cognomen thus "Miss" MacArthur and Mr. Anderson would there be Mr. and Mrs. MacArthur-Anderson.

It is obviously socially convenient for man and wife, the father and mother of a family, to bear the same name; but, on the other hand, it is not only an extinguishing of the wife's individuality, but very disadvantageous to a woman who has made some reputation as a writer, painter, public worker, or who has taken a degree while single, and so on, to sink her identity on marriage; and it is so unpleasant to a father to see his name lost, by his heiress marrying, that we know that it is quite common for the husband of such an heiress to consent to take his wife's name.  A very striking instance of this being done for the sake of a great reputation instead of a vast fortune is that of the descendants of Sir Walter Scott.  His descendants in each generation have been females only, and the men who have married these ladies have taken the name of Scott, hyphened with their own (the Scott last), so that the great author's patronymic should not be covered and lost.  In English society, again, it is usual for the widow of a titled man to keep her deceased husband's name, for the sake of the title, on remarrying with a commoner.  It was not always the English custom even to call married and single women by a distinctive prefix.  In the eighteenth century every girl who had left the schoolroom was called "Mrs.," just as every man, married or single, is known as "Mr."

[Mary MacArthur had been involved from the start of the war in the Central Committee on Women's Employment, which promoted employment schemes for women who had lost their jobs due to the disruption to trade caused by the war. She was the Labour candidate in the Stourbridge constituency in the 1919 General Election, but was defeated.]

TIZ for Land-girls

From Woman's Weekly, June 1st 1918.

"TIZ" - a Joy to Sore, Tired Feet.

"After the day's work, thanks to TIZ I feel as fresh as a daisy."

Good-bye sore feet, burning feet, swollen feet, perspiring feet, tired feet.

Good-bye corns, hard skin, bunions, and chilblains.  No more shoe tightness, no more limping with pain or drawing up your face in agony.  TIZ is magical, acts right off.  TIZ draws out all the poisonous exudations which puff up the feet.  Use TIZ and wear smaller shoes.  Use TIZ and forget your foot misery.  Ah! how comfortable your feet feel.

Don't forget to include TIZ in your parcel to the boys at the Front.

"I cannot speak too highly of TIZ," declares Nurse L. A. Clears, 22, Fawnbrake-avenuc, Herne Hill, S.E.  "It has given me wonderful relief after being a great sufferer from tender feet and bad corns.  I have used TIZ three times and can now walk anywhere without discomfort."

Get a 1/3 box of  TIZ now at chemist's or store.  Don't suffer.  Have good feet, glad feet, feet that never swell, never hurt, never get tired. A year's foot comfort guaranteed or money refunded.

Mrs Grundy

From Home Notes, 1st June 1918.

JUST GRUNDY!

A new point of view on a very old subject.

I’ve often wondered why it is that we've always been brought up to believe that Mrs. Grundy is a Mrs.  I’m not at all certain that the person in question isn't a Mr!

I went out to dinner with my on-leave brother the other night, and when I produced my cigarette case at the end of the meal he was horrified.  Yes, in 1918!  He actually went on to say that he didn't care to see women smoking in public, especially when the woman in question was his own sister.  And he looked at my short hair and said for the eighty-ninth time that day that he couldn't imagine why modern girls wanted to copy men! 

I told him also for the eighty-ninth time that they didn't; that they simply smoked be'cause they liked it, and cut their hair and wore breeches for comfort’s sake; but he wasn't in the least convinced and never will be, I'm sure.  And then they try to make you believe that Mrs. Grundy is a woman.

I remember two years ago, when I first broached the subject of going on the land.  It took me about five minutes to convince mother that it was the thing for me to do; but it took me about a month to make dad even begin to consider the question seriously.  And he's not in the least a stern parent; it's simply that he holds the usual masculine and Grundy-ish view on what any female relation of his may or may not do.

I've just remembered Aunt Julia's face when she first saw me in my farm kit, though, and I must say that, after all, the Grundys aren't always Misters. Perhaps it would be better to say that it's a case of six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.  But anyway, let's be honest about it and not put all the blame on one side. Let’s allude to the person in question as just "Grundy" in future, then I think we shall be a great deal nearer the truth—don’t you? 

["Mrs Grundy is a figurative name for an extremely conventional or priggish person, a personification of the tyranny of conventional propriety... . she began life as a minor character in Thomas Morton's play Speed the Plough (1798) " (Wikipedia). ]