Page:The Feminist Movement - Snowden - 1912.djvu/137

 important character, particularly to the people affected by them. These include the appointment of overseers, who collect the rate for the poor, look after the voting registers, levy rates for education purposes, and give relief to the poor. A woman is eligible as an overseer of the poor. Under certain conditions the Parish Council has power to buy or hire land for allotments and kindred purposes. The public health, or at least the prevention of disease by the removal of nuisances, is a part of its work. The building of a village hall, and the protection of rights-of-way and village greens, as well as the repairing of foot-paths, are matters within its jurisdiction. It has power to adopt certain permissive Acts of Parliament, such as the Burial Acts, the Public Improvements Act, the Public Libraries Act, the Lighting and Watching, and Baths and Wash-houses Acts; and if these are adopted, it is the duty of the Parish Council to see that they are carried out. Parish Councils are very largely in the hands of local farmers, good and worthy men indeed, but men who customarily weigh every penny many times before they spend it, and whose natural conservatism permits them to wait until long after a public need has been felt before they begin to think of gratifying it. A business-like woman on a Parish Council would act as a spur to the activities of