700

THE CONGRESS OF WOMEN.

You and I were reading of the Sicilian vespers reeking with blood, while from the scanty dinners of the poor ascended to the Lord a sweeter savor than from our rich and dainty boards.

The lacemakers know scores of such stories. Learning thus daily of the great influence for good which even the lowliest can exert, let us also learn from them never to neglect the smallest opportunities, for they are the stepping-stones set by Provi­dence to bridge the deep chasm of egotistical selfishness which lies between our frail humanity and the great example, Christ. The little seven-year-old lacemakers will join the big ones in showing with pride their lace pillows. Each one is absolute pro­prietress of all she makes, and can even sell it herself. She must then charge a small percentage above the price paid to her and hand it in to the cashier to assist in defray­ing the expenses incurred for the lighting, heating and the administration of the lace school by which she has profited gratuitously to learn her art. The simple tools used by the lacemakers are loaned to them, but any wanton loss or destruction of these objects is deducted from their earnings. The accounts are settled monthly, and the price paid for the lace augmented up to a high percentage above the regular rate in proportion to its superiority to the sample, and a percentage is deducted if it falls below or is needlessly spoiled.

( The scale of payment is governed by the money we can obtain for the lace. Hence we seek to originate new designs and have objects made which will attract the wealthy. Could we command enough work there are thousands of women in Fruili alone waiting to join our schools or organize into co-operative societies.

The race which inhabits Fruili and speaks its language is robust, handsome, intel­ligent and patient.

The women do not work as regularly as the men in the fields, but assist them there whenever necessary, and as they have the usual feminine fear of storms, one often sees when the thunder growls a posse of the weaker sex huddled together beneath a projecting bank, praying in abject fear. The women in the high-perched village are the first to spy the thunder-caps scudding along toward the quarter of the heavens which arches their homes, and they hurry to the church-tower and ring the bells to call the laborers from the fields and the old to their orisons. They ring with a will, for they believe that by establishing an aerial commotion through the swinging, reverber­ating bells the devastator can be warded off. As the storm approaches the prayer of the bells is heard ringing clear and strong between the gusts of wind. It increases to a wild entreaty in the on-rush of the tempest, and the wild clamor breaks in a- frenzy of despair when the storm bursts.

Then begins the deep tolling of the great passing bell as the battered flowers and lascerated branches are carried along, tossed and torn by the blast and bruised by the cutting sheets of ice, fit emblems of the dying hopes of the hard-working peas­ants and the anguish of crushed nature.

The voices of the village bells die away in a quivering sob, which seems wrung from their metal hearts in pity for the devastation around them. At the vesper hour they will rise again clear, despite the past, to praise God. Fit reminders of the Eternal Spring, the sunshine and the fresh budding and blossoming that lie beyond.

Since peasant and proprietor suffer alike from these terrific rain and hail storms, the gentlefolk of Fruili are seeking in every way to render their tenants familiar with all the means for rapidly substituting fresh crops for those destroyed. They also seek to supply them with other means of earning a livelihood in inclement weather so that they may maintain their families and meet their financial obligations with the proceeds of their manual industry.

About twenty-five years ago a gentleman farmer named Pecile died in Tagagna, a village which numbers about two hundred thousand inhabitants. He left an income which consists of five hundred dollars, to be spent yearly on agricultural instruction for the peasants, and in assisting any enterprise or industry started in the place which promised to add to their physical or moral development. Despite its modest propor-