The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-09-30
FEMININE BLACKSMITH.
From the New Yor

IFrom the New York Press
The Sisters of st. Dominic, near King
Williams Town, Cape Colony, South AZ
RIGA have established a blacksmith s shop
and have adopted the role of the new
woman in a brand-new character. The
Sisters of st. Dominic, eager to sow the
seeds of religion in Africa turned their
backs on the time-honored converts of
Europe and established a settlement in
extensive farm Finding that farm la
borers were scarce in a land where most
of the digging was for gold and diamonds,
than digging Tor potatoes, the nuns quiet
" put their hands to the plow- But acct
dents will happen even in a convent, and
in time the plowshare was broken.
There being no bIacksm1ths IN that re-
gion, the nuns sent to Cape Town and
got the materials to build and the tools
and implements to supply a smlthy.
blacksmith a tutor was secured and
now the nuns have learned how to do
far proved not only their equality with
man, but their superiority to him, for,
when the blacksmith, d1sTegardlng ms
religious environments and the respect
due the noble women who hired him. went
on prolonged spree, they bounced MIN
out of the settlement.
In the new country where the nuns have
set up their habitation the Boer neigh
bors regard their work with suspicion
and resentment the English stand and
wonder and the natives look on with awe
and reverence. The visitor who rides to
comes upon the nuns brown clad ana
busy hoeing, blowing, pruning and graft
ing, or perhaps driving strong-nnped
oxen to the water At close range the
most striking effect in the appearance
OF a sister OF st. Domino as seen IN
South Africa is her rosy. tanned face, so
different from the bloodless, white COM
plexiOn of the nun under ordinary con-
ditions. This natural bronze is well earn
ed. Day after day, week after week,
month after month, the nuns toll at the
forge and in the field, exposed to the
rays of the African sun and the fierce
The feminine blacksmiths of the Dom
inican convent are experts. The precision
of the hammer swinging nuns seems to
exercise a sort of fascination over the
rest of the sisterhOOd for they will 60
gaze at their hard working sisters of the
smithy.
A recent visitor to the Sisters of st.
Dominic, who had the good fortune to
bishop to the mother superior, entered
the occasion in detail in his diary. The
abbess proved to be a woman endowed
with uncOmmonly good sense. She was
practical and her personal spirituality
was so aided and tempered with a knOwl-
edge of human nature and a sense of hu-
NOR that she captivated the visitor: After
a tour of inspection of vines, fruit trees
and growing trees the abbeSS drove him
to the blacksmith shop. The smithy was
a long, narrow building. with a strong
whole surmounted with red cupOla,
with Slated sides, through which the
smoke of the forge drifted. Within were
a well-built brick forge, a strong, capac-
tomary paraphernalia incidental to the
vocation of Votaries of Vulcan.
Tethered to a strong oaken rack in the
center of the shop was a draught horse,
claimed the Flemish animal. With nail
box beside her, a nun bent over the nigh
and with a pair of tOngs was fitting
red hot shoe to the scOrching hoof. With
the assistance of sister. the nun nailed
the shoe, and, patting the side of the