BIG FIGURES.

Through the offices at 58, Victoria-street there have passed some 8,000 women, old as well as young. Of these 2,000 have desired to do munition work, and the rest have offered themselves for other vocations. They have ranged from the quite unhelpable, as the old lady of over 70, who wanted “munition work that she could do at home,” under the impression that it was a new form of embroidery not too fine for her fading eyesight, to the bright, capable girl, who could be sent at once to drive a motor delivery van. But all have had a patient hearing, and it has often turned out that the Bureau could suggest something much more suitable to the applicant’s qualifications than that which she had asked for. The aim was to avoid putting the round peg into the square hole.

One of the most noteworthy and successful of achievements was accomplished for the War Office. The Supply Department notified that it was prepared to engage 300 women to put hay into bales, and to see that it was correct in weight when it left the stores, and was duly and accurately delivered at the goods yards for transport. The work has been continuous, and those ladies responsible for the inspection at the stations are provided with motor bicycles. In other departments connected with the Army’s forage they have also afforded most useful help.

The Young Men’s Christian Association have not always found it easy to get the right type of reliable woman for some of their canteens out of London. Several such assistants have been nominated by the Bureau, and at Aldershot it has been necessary to open a hostel for their residence. From here, too, has come a very considerable proportion of the women who are now so usefully employed as lift attendants, ticket collectors, tram and omnibus conductors, while any who can render useful labour in gardening or agriculture are heartily encouraged and assisted to do so. All branches of secretarial and clerical work have been largely represented among the applicants, and the Bureau has been highly successful in placing them. Wherever a woman comes with some special domestic qualification, as the trained care of children or cookery, she is always earnestly advised to continue in it, as the calls for special work have left these callings much under-supplied.