ABSTRACT
ART. II.-CO-OPERATION IN VIENNA. A NlJ}IDER of ladies have succeeeded in establishing a very flourishing eo-operative society in Vienna for the purchase of household stores at wholesale prices, a movement which seems likely to have ulterior results even more important than improved domestic economy. The nature of these may be inferred from the treatment of the movement by the local press, which is certainly very suggestive of the need eXIsting in Austria, as elsewhere, of enlightened views of the claims and position of women. Having premised that he does not object to the ladies meeting in public because they only do so to further home interests, a writer in the leading Viennese journals lately gave a detailed account of the association, and described its operations in a manner that is very amusing in another sense than that intended. The l1aive astonishment with which he observes that persons in elaborately-trimmed dresses could actually develop an aptitude for business, could express themselves with ease and fluency, and generally conduct themselves like reasonable human beings, is evidently unaffectE::d, recalling that expressed by Sir Henry James, on finding that ladies" fluttt:ring in ribbons" attempted to answer the arguments of speakers in the House of Commons. Viennese ladies are, indeed, said to be very fond of dress, and may, possibly, devote so much attention to it as to justify their critic in being surprised to find that they had other pursuits, but the fact is that demonstratiOIlH ill the way of trimmings and ribbons are not to bE:: rdied upon as evidences of imbecility, since mauy a woman who has better things to think about, allows herself to be made iuto a "Jack in the green" by her modiste fl'om sheer force of habit. Meantime, the really admirable organization of the Viennese lIausfrauen Ven,in will go far to show that the exercise of the highest administrating faculty on a scale of national importance being well within the compass of female capacity, it is but a poor joko to criticize a combined publio effort on the part of women to advance an economical reform. in the same strain as the performance of a company of trained canarieR.
