Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 290, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 December 1918 — BRITISH WOMEN IN WAR WORK [ARTICLE]

BRITISH WOMEN IN WAR WORK

Gentle Sex Is Certainly Doing Its Share in the Great Contest Being - Waged for Liberty. With a gay laugh, the pit-brow girls bend to their task oJer the picking belt- ’‘/I*'" Their duty consists of picking out and- casting aside all the “dirt" and rubbish from among the coal which moves slowly along in front of them on the belt on its way to the shoots ipto the waiting wagons below. Splendidly strong, hefty lasses they are, too, in their dark-blue overalls and caps. “Quite equal to the men at tills job,” says the foreman of the screening house, where all the coal is carefully screened into different sizes, from huge lumps to tiny pieces no larger than a very small bean. We wander from h4re into the lamproom, where the miners’ lamps are cleaned, trimmed and filled. Here, again, the girls do the work, with the aid of. machines in which rapidly revolving brushes play a large part. As the miners come out of the pit they hand their lamps to the girls through a little'window in the lalnproom, receiving them again next day, cleaned and filled, on their return to work. ' •

Sawing' the timber into lengths for pit-props to support the roof in the mine is another branch Of labor undertaken by women and girl*. Thus do the girls assist the miner to fulfill his great task of supplying the allied nations with the coal whfpfr’ Marshal FoCh assures us is “the key to victory.” Thus do. they help to light his way and to keep him safe. Cupid, too, is busy at the pits today. Many a knight of the Silver Badge 'returns to find a bride among the bonnie lassies on the pit-brow.—London Mail