Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 208, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1912 — TOWN FOB WOMEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TOWN FOB WOMEN

Little Communities Located in Belgian Cities. Party of Tourists Attempt to Enter Bacred Village With Auto and Are Btopped by Nun —Making Lacs Is Chlsf industry. Ghent, Belgium.—l cannot Imagine the dwellers in my “women’s towns” feeling in the least oppressed because they have no votes; and yet the keynote of their lives is a desire for selfsupport and honorable independence, they have merely stepped aside from the course of ordinary life into abiding places' that they rule and control and that are shut away from the haunts of men by walls and gates and moats; toy cities so spotlessly neat, so circumspect, so imbued with the hush of perpetual afternoon that time seems to stand still In their gunny precin<ss. Nevertheless, on my first visit to a women’s town I was., eyewitness to a surprising act of self-assertion by one of Its gentle guardians. Under conduct of a friend long resident In the old F’emish city of Ghent, which forms the outer shell of this women’s town, a little party of us in a motor car turned In one summer morning from the street and ran without stop or parley through the arched gateway into th« broad, clean road leading to the interior. There a little, black robed, whiter coifed woman, with flashing eyes and a flushed countenance, dashed, directly into the path of the advancing car and peremptorily ordered us to stop and go back. The chauffeur obeyed meekly. Once we were safely across the moat and in our proper place outside the walls our rebuker changed her manner. In silvery accents she beggeu us to walk in; then, recognizing our chauffeur, Bhe explained that in the tourist season all motors were excluded because of their noise and reek. The Beguinage they call it, this little community founded by a woman for women. They are two of the kind in Ghent, one in beautiful old Bruges and the others scattered throughout Belgluga. The institution dates from the thirteenth century. But the present buildings are modern, for the Beguinage was in 1876 transferred by city order from its ancient site, which was required for the laying out of new streets. A complete miniature city It stands today, with streets and squares, and entrance gates in the encircling

walls, and a church, round which cluster a picturesque congeries of little two-storied brick dwellings, each with the name of Its patron saint Inscribed above the dor. The Begulnes here number about 700. Their chief industry is the making of lovely spider web lace, over which you may see them at work on aU sides. And as accidents will occur to those costly laces and valued old-time specimens will wear out In unexpected places, it is to the Beguinage that the owners, from royal ladies down, send their treasures to be repaired.

Where All Is Peace and Rest.