Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-07-15
FEMININE BLACKSMlTHS
The Sisters of St, Dominic Have Learned
to Shoe Horses.
A South African Convent That fs De-
cidedly Out of the Ordinary
A Recent Visit.

From the New York Press.
The Sisters Of st. Dominic, near King
Williams Town. Cape Colony, South
| Africa, have established a blacksmith's
| shop, and have adopted the role of the new
| woman in a brand-new character. The Sis
| ters of St. Dominic, eager to SOW the seeds
of religion in Africa, turned their backs on
| the dme-honored converts Of Europe and
established a settlement in Cape Colony,
| where they purchased an extensive farm.
Finding that farm laborers were scarce in
| a land where most of the digging was for
gold and diamonds, a far more profitable
use Of the spade than digging for potatoes,
the nuns quietly put their hands to the
pillow. But accidents will happen even in a
convent. and in time the plowshare was
broken.
There being no blacksmiths in that re-
gion. the nuns sent to Cape Town and got
the materials to build and the tools and i'm
PIGMENTS to supply a smtthy. A blacksmith
as tutor was secured, and now the nuns
have learned how to do their own smith
work. They have thus far proved not only
their equality with man, but their supe-
riortty to him, for, when the blacksmith,
disregarding his religious environments and
the respect due to the noble women who
hired him. went on a prolonged SPREE they
bounced him out of the settlement.
In the new country where the nuns have
set up their habitation the Boer neighbors
IeSdrN lHeir WORK WITH suspicion ana re-
sentiment, the English stand and wonder
and the natives look on with awe and rev.
erence. The visitor who rides to the con-
vent from King Williams Town comes
upon the nuns, brown clad and busy hoeing,
blowing pruning and grating, or perhaps
driving strong-lknbed oxen to the water.
At close range the most striking effect in
the appearance of a Sister of st. Dominic
as seen in South Africa is her rosy. tanned
face, so different from the bloodless, white
complexion of the nun under ordinary con-
ditions This natural bronze is we'll earned.
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 heat of the
forge.
The feminine blacksmiths Of the Domini-
can convent are experts. The precision Of
the hammer swinging nuns seems to ex-
ercise a sort Of fascination over the rest of
the sisterhood, for they will go out of their
way on their daily tasks to gaze at their
hard-working sisters of the smithy.
A recent visitor to the Sisters Of st. Dom
mic, who had the good fortune to possess
letter of Introduction from a bishop to the
mother superior, entered the occasion In de-
tail in his diary. The abbess proved to be
woman endowed with uncommonly good
sense. She was practical and her personal
spirituality was so aided and tempered with
a knowledge of human nature and sense
OF humor that she captivated the visitor
After a tour Of inspection of vines, fruit
trees and growing crops, the abbess drove
him to the blacksmith shop. The smithy
was long. narrow building, with a strong
frame, the sides clapboarded and the whole
surmounted with a red cupola, with Slated
sides. through which the smoke of the forge
drifted. Within were a well-built brick
forge, a strong, capacious bellows of OK
hide, and all the customary paraphernalia
incidental to the vocation of votaries of
Vulcan.
Tethered to a strong oaken rack In the
center of the shop was draught horse,
whose big bones and shaggy fetIocks pro-
claimed the Flemish animal. With nail
box beside her, nun bent over the nigh
hind foot, with a foot resting in her lap
and with a pair Of tongs was fitting a red
hot shoe to the scorching hoof With the
assistance of a sister, the nun nailed the
shoe, and, patting the side of the horse,
she proceeded to lift another hoof and re-
peat the performance with a second shoe.
Once or twice the nun drove nail in a
direction that did not satisfy her. Such she
withdrew, but at last the shoe was firmly
nailed, nails clnched and sharp corners all
neatly rasped down, and the big horse was
shod as neatly and as well the average
blacksmith could have done it.
While the horseshoeing was in progress
another nun was busy making hinges,
hooks and staples, ringbOlts and other ar
ticles of builders hardware out of small
rod and bar iron. She hammered away in
rather an experimental fashion, and fire.
qUently exhibited her work to the nun who
had shod the horse, seeking her advice
upon knOtty points of the smiths art. An
other nun was repairing farm machinery,
and seemed to be an adept at the work