The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-10-22
WOMEN MUCH TALKED OF
SUBJECTS OF LONDON CHATTER
AT EARLY AFTERNOON TEAS.

Potter, Lady EarbertOn and Other
Danes Known on Both Sides of the
Big Pond - Mary Anderson and the
Chewing Gum Machine.
New YORK, Oct. 20-"Drop a penny in
the slot, pull out the drawer and get photo
graph of Mary Anderson"
This is the English version of the chewing
gum machine. 1t swallows small coin aud
emits the face of our Mary at railway sta
| tions in dry goods stores and on street cor
| ners. Sometimes it varies It's performances
by turning cut likenesses of Ellen Terry or
| Grace Hawthorne. 1t follows the way of
| the world which talks much nowadays
| about women.
| London mas talked about Annie Besant
his summer with quite as much interest as
| it feels in any daughter of John Bull. Where
| aer persistent efforts in behalf Of various Or
carnations of working women might not
Of themselves have held the public eye, the
openly manifested hostility of her brother
n-law, Mr.. Walter Besant, the novelist,
| who has even been credited with efforts to
| establish a difference of pronunciation be-
| tween their names, accenting his own on the
| second syllable and bers on the first, to OBJ
| scuro the family connection, has not allowed
tongues to cease Wagglng.
] noticed picture OF Mrs. BeSant one
| rainy morning in shop window. While |
! allowed the drippings from my umbrella to
| fall into the eyes of q very small and
very determined match girl as stopped to
| look at it, couple of workingmen paused
behind me and seeing the face that had
caught my attention, lifted their hats be-
| fore the photograph tribute of respect
| | nthar
| woman or man.
| Their action called my attention to the
| fact that | was standing in front of the pub
! LEGATION office of the Link, labor paper
| edited by Mrs. Besant, and a moment later,
acting on tie Information, | was climbing
! some very dark and dingy stairs. Mrs.
| Besant'5 desk was hemmed in by compost
| tors cases on four sides, and while the
| typos passed this way and that with galleys
| of matter | studied an interesting face. 1t
| might have been a beautiful face with its
! large eyes, sweet mouth aud dark, wavy
! hair. if it had not been a sd face, a face
that had loss stamped on its every line.
Watching the tail slender figure i'll its
softly falling gown Of dull gold, cut III
quaint, aesthetic fashion, my mind went
| back to The tales I had heard of the girl
who married Clergyman and found herself
| out of harmony with the church aud out of
| her husbands favor; of the divorce suit,
where nothing could be established against
| a blameless lie; of the children taken from
| their mother, and of the busy years writing,
| lecturing, disputing with Frances Power
| Cobbe on atheism, editing socialistic papers
| and pamphlets since L had heard her
! called dangerous woman, a miSchievous
! element in society, alel alike to state and
| creed. [ had heard her children's gOverness
| call her with enthusiasm t. G loveliest lady
| in England It seemed to me that
I az I II
to agree with the IA t opinion than the first.
/ mad not had time to frame a decent eX-
cuse for my intrusion, so | asked her for the
addresses Of people TO whom | could apply
| for facts about the working women of Lon
| don.
She refused to be considered an authority
| on that point, saying that she was far more
| interested in a general socialistic propaganda
than i'll any special work undertaken for
| one sex or the other.
| "We shall see stra &c things here this win
| ter, and one has to consider humanity, not
women or men. Do you remember the
! Trafalgar square and Hyde Park meetings
! last slring"
answered that understood times were
! improving and that London looked forward
| TO q quiet season.
Trade is better, to be sure, but the i'm
| provement won't reach down to the great
body Of the working peope for year to
come. There will be more unemploy, d
this winter than last and more suffering
They call us a mob when we gather in the
| parks, but [ have been in and out through
the densost crowds that ever had Sunday
foEs heir meeting day, and street roughs
| don't Weld woman the courtesy that these
mobs showed me. They were hungry and
hous less, and when the hop-picking and
the harvesting is over London will be full OF
them again.
asked her about Bryant & Mays match
girls, whose case she took before parliament
and whom she organized two months age
into the largest trades union of women il
Great Britain.
Sc said that the case of the women who
for an average wage of 81 80 a week were
working many hours day mt a trade 50
unhealthy as 10 make them liable to carrie
of the jaw, and who We're fined so constantly
as hardly to bring out one weeks wages I'M
touched in six, had really touched the pub
lie heart and that the opportunity for a
general organization of women workers
was never better.
l asked her il socialism were on the in
crease in England. She said that it was,
and then she talked TO me OF a world with
out G d refusing to rest i'll the idea that
earth's wrongs and agonies would be righted
hereafter, and saying that good, the final
goal of ill, cJuld be reached only as man
put aside the idea of deity who permitted
the present wrong, and set himself strenu-
ously to cure earth's pain by the best of his
own reason and skill, glad In the thought
that he was creating new earth for hap
pier race Her face lighted as she spoke
aud she was evidently woman in deadly
earnest, unselfsh, devoted, spending herself
for a cause.
Mrs Besant is an indefatigable worker.
saw her billed for three lectures in Manches-
ter, TO be delivered morning. afternoon ana
evening, OH the Sunday after my talk with
her in London. Much of her work is done
jointly with Mr.. Bradlaugb, the two form
ing publishing company which sends out
a good deal of radical literature. The con-
nectlon with Bradlaugh does her no good in
conservative eyes, but East London asks no
questions about her credit idolizes her for
the clear voice she has lifted in its behalf.
Another woman in whom East London
and West London are interested is Beatrice
Potter, who masqueraded as a working tail
Dress in the worst of the sweaters shops,
and whose Pages From Working Girls
Diary" are appearing i'll successive numbers
of the Nineteenth Century,
Miss Potter is woman whom it is hardly
possible to imagine carrying out successfully
the deception aHd investigation which have
resulted i'll a picture so terrible in its details
Tall, dark haired. dark eyed, diRniied, al
most regal in her bearing, a very queer
among women, it is hard to picture hei