WHITE WOMEN IN THE TROPICS [To the Editor of the
SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—As a former resident of Queensland, the most tropical of the Australian States, I wish to support Miss Sternberg's view that women can live and be healthy there. The idea that women cannot stand life in tropical parts is a hardy sur- vival of the similar belief that the white man could not work there—a belief Queensland was the first British possession to put down firmly as far back as the 'nineties when it abolished " blackbirding."
I discussed this question with a bank manager who had lived north of the Tropic of Capricorn, and he told me that the
experience of men like himself was that if their wives had un- limited native help in the house ill-health was the natural result. If domestic help were scarce their wives kept fit. Anyone with personal experience will tell the same story that, alike for men or women, to give way to lassitude induced by hot weather is fatal. Work—that is, physical exercise—is the , sine qua non for healthy life in the Tropics.—I am, Sir, &e., 134 Fleet Street, London, E.C. 4. E. L. C. WATSON.
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