Still it needs to be remembered, to extenuate her crimes, That these flappers have not always had the very best of times; And the life that now she’s leading, with no Mentors to restrain, Is decidedly unhinging to an undeveloped brain. Then again we only see her when she’s out for play or meals, And distresses the fastidious by her gestures and her squeals, But she is not always idle or a decorative drone, And if she wastes her wages, well, she wastes what is her own. Still to say that she’s heroic, as some scribes of late have said, Is unkind as well as foolish, for it only swells her head; She oughtn’t to be flattered, she requires to be repressed, Or she’ll grow into a portent and a peril and a pest. Dr. SHADWELL to the PREMIER makes an eloquent appeal In firm and drastic fashion with this element to deal; And ’twould be a real feather in our gifted Cambrian’s cap If he taught the peccant flapper less flamboyantly to flap. But, in our way of thinking, ’tis for women, kind and wise, These neglected scattered units to enrol and mobilize, Their vagabond activities to curb and concentrate, And turn the skittish hoyden to a servant of the State. She’s young; her eyes are dazzled by the glamour of the streets; She has to learn that life is not all cinemas and sweets; But given wholesome guidance she may rise to self-control And earn the right of entry on the Nation’s golden Roll. THE FEMININE FACTOTUM [The _Daily Chronicle_, writing on women farmers, quotes the tribute of HUTTON, the historian, to a Derbyshire lady who died at Matlock in 1854: “She undertakes any kind of manual labour, as holding the plough, driving the team, thatching the barn, using the flail; but her chief avocation is breaking horses at a guinea per week. She is fond of Pope and Shakespeare, is a self-taught and capable instrumentalist, and supports the bass viol in Matlock Church.”] Though in the good old-fashioned days The feminine factotum rarely Was honoured with a crown of bays When she had won it fairly; She did emerge at times, like one For manual work a perfect glutton, Blue-stocking half, half Amazon, As chronicled by HUTTON. But now you’ll find her counterpart In almost every English village— A mistress of the arduous art Of scientific tillage, Who cheerfully resigns the quest Of all that makes a woman charming, And shows an even greater zest For gardening and farming. She used to petrify her dons; She was a most efficient bowler; But now she’s baking barley scones To help the FOOD CONTROLLER; Good _Mrs. Beeton_ she devours, And not the dialogues of PLATO, And sets above the Cult of Flowers The cult of the Potato.