Page:Every Woman's Encyclopedia Volume 1.djvu/760

 MARRIAGE 73^ The president of the Y.W.C.A. remarks " Men grow ashamed of a careless life when confronted with the quiet voices and gentle manner of these girls." She adds : " There is no greater civilising power than that which a truly good woman wields." Many of these young women are now happy wives and mothers in homes of their own. The Civilising: Power of Women The British Women's Emigration Asso- ciation does not assist the servant class to emigrate, rightly considering that the various shipping agencies cover that adequately. It prefers to help women and girls of the middle class and gentlewomen who find it difficult to earn a living in England. On arriving in British Columbia, servants marry much more frequently than gentlewomen. What men want out there is a wife who can work and help to build up the home. A young couple who started married life with twenty dollars bought a small piece of land in the outskirts of Vancouver on the instalment plan, and built a two-room house on it. They now own the land, and have added to the house, making it into a commodious home. A lady-help who was sent to a situation two or three hundred miles up-country married the owner of a large ranche. She has just been supplied by the Y.W.C.A. with a mother's-help to help her in the care of her little child. Capable Women A few years ago two sisters applied to be sent into the Dry Belt, as both had a tendency to consumption. They worked so well that they were able to send home for their whole family — the mother, two sisters, and a brother, who lived very poorly in a small town in England. They arc together now in one of the prettiest of the little towns in the Okanagen Valley, and are healthy and prosperous, the two young sisters married, and the boy in good employ. Many women approaching middle age have emigrated to British Columbia, and a number of them have married. A capable woman who can " take hold " is valued in this land, where work, and plenty of it, is the order of the day — sometimes a very long day, too. It is of no use for querulous) grumbling girls and women, with a horror of anything " menial," to go out as emi- grants. To begin with, they must prepare to work hard. Easy times may come, and often do. The Qlories of British Columbia British Columbia is a beautiful country. The vastness and grandeur of the scenery is unsurpassed. Mr. Julian Ralph wrote of it as " twenty Switzerlands rolled into one." With more than the grandeur of Switzerland, the Columbians have also fiords, as of Norway, running up for miles into the land in deep, clear water, and lichen- covered cliffs, where sea-birds build their nests. And reminiscent of Scotland are the long, calm lakes in the north, studded with little islands. Stunted pines mount guard about the lakes. The clear air gives wonderful effects of colour to sunrise and sunset. One of the British girls received by the Women's Immigration Society stood gazing down the road from Vancouver to the Burrard Inlet, and said, " There is a picture at the end of every street, and they belong to everyone." Any girl or woman who feels tempted to try a new path in life in beautiful surround- ings, and with wider prospects than are possible at home, should apply to the British Women's Emigration Society, Imperial Institute, London, S.W. 73G" FAMOUS CHURCHES F© SOCIETY WEDDIMGS CO'^xrjLt-Z. Why St. George's, Hanover Square, was the First Church to he Used for Society Weddings Investing Entries in Church Registers-St. Paul's, Knightsbridge— The Guards' Chapel —Where M.P.s arc Married— Where Roman Catholic Fashionable Weddings are Solemnised I-X)ndon MONG J^ndon churches, St. George's, Hanover Square, has been more particularly associated with weddings than any other for at least three generations. Mid - Victorian novelists almost invariably sent their heroines to the altar of this church and " Punch." a faithful reflector of the tunes, used St, George's as a synonym for marriage. Thackeray, in his " Jeames de la Pluche," made a similar use of the name. In those days there were far fewer very wealthy families than now, and they chiefly lived in the parish of St. George's, in Grosvenor and Cavendish Squares, Park Lane, and the streets leading to them. Thus it happened that St. George's had practically a monopoly of fashionable marriages.