The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1900-01-28

from home duties a yearly three months
holiday which she spent in the London
slums under the guidance OF her cousin,
Charles Booth, the author of Life and
Labor of the People" to which she con-
tributed a number of essays.
great niece of Lord MacauIey's and
the daughter of a man whose life was oc-
cupied with interesting pursuits of all
kinds; herself young, sensitive and impress
sionable. she would perhaps not nave per-
sisted in her attempts to understand So
cial disease by a close contact with its
symptoms, had il not been for her scien-
tifc mental bias. Had she been a poet
or a writer, had she seen the poor as
Dickens or as Alphonse Daudet saw them,
she would have contributed to literature
rather ulan to the archives of research,
she would have suffered, lived pulsed.
throbbed with human beings living a gi-
gantic drama, rather than studied and
classified specimens verifying a science.
II made my sojourn among the London
poor as impersonal as possible" she says.
II never regarded living among any class
in society other than means OF making
investigations. 1t is not our business, any
more than 1t ds a doctors to be affected
emotionally by what we see. We must
first diagnose the case and then suggest
remedies which the government should
applv. But the whole worth of a DOCTORS
diagnosis depends upon its promptness.
Beatrice Webb and her husband VIII spend
ten wears diagnosing the local government
whose symptoms alter with every change
noIitical or Industrial; their book, there
fore. when it is finally completed VIII De
more of a post mortem than a materia
n,edica Yet Mrs Webb knows no dis
courapenoent She works all days long
every day accum ulating statistics, noting,
commenting. writing, lecturing, visiting
the local centers and delvlng INTO parish
records and county council reports. WIN
ber husband Sydney Webb, she has start
"a scbool of economies and political SCI
ence which will next year be made part
of the new London University 1t Is
school of technical administrator Mrs.
xvehh is n member of the managing COM
mitiee and lectures to the students on IN
dustrial regulations. factory Legislation,
trades unionism, etc.
Ms webb Criticises Congress.
"1f the school is later so arranged that
foreieners may take degrees, l hope, she
SAYS. "that Americans WIN senu US soiiIe
students for, although American unlVer-
sttics are. l think, even more promising
~, oxford and Cambridge, and the Wo-
,,,er,s colleges decidedly ahead of ours,
vet Americans have much TO learn con-
corning technical administration. Dur
ing my visit to the Cnted states was
IMMERSED by the bad conduct in public
weddings. Congress has so bad a meth
"a ~ procedure that II is impossible 10
cot through business. This also Increases
the tendency to one man power she
continues In England the Speaker Of
me House is merely there to keep order,
while the Speaker Of the House In Wash
tneton has absorbed the whole power and
a. nractically the leader The Mayor also
has more power than the City Council,
and so on"
referring to expansion Mrs. Webb gives
This oDinion: 1T win act l believe, in
an indirect good, by necessitating in the
United states more reliable civil serv-
ice man the present one, which can be
neither good nor honest, for the reason
that Americans do not discriminate be-
tween officials and representatives. Rep
resentatives should he changed from time
to time; officials should occupy permanent