The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-08-30

in business 
 I Der of women's hospitals entirely staffed I by women, even in the surgical depart ments. Many women are also specializ- ing in such departments of medicine and surgery as eye. ear and throat work | Commerce., by which term is meant wholesale trade, is also being steadily | invaded. There were S474 women reg I istered as being engaged in commerce in 1881, 59,sH in 1901 and 126.S47 in 1911.
 An extremely interesting table shows at a glance how women have almost secured Q monopoly in some trades and professions and how in some others they have lost ground slightly. It is remarkable, for instance, that in the teaching profession
 they have hardly made any advance since l 1S61 Thus in 1861 under the heading l ''schoolmasters teachers, professors, lec- turers," 725 of every 1900 persons were women. This proportion rose to TAG in 1884, but in 1911 1t had fallen again to l 727. Under the heading photographers
 however, there was an advance from l 66 to 297 per 1000, while under the head ] ing "commercial and business clerks there was an advance of from to 245 | per 1000 In the telegraph and telephone
 service the proportion had advanced from l S2 to 522 and in the bootmaking trade
 
 ] featuring trade the proportion of women advanced from 221 to b96
 l Apparently however, the displaced men
 have retaliated to some extent by invad- | ing the fields hitherto held sacred to wom-
 en. For instance, the proportion of wom- | en per 1000 in the laundry and washing | industry was 300 in 1861 and only 03l in 1911. In the straw hat manufacturing | trade it had fallen from 921 to 666 per | 1000 and in lace manufacture from S29 to 690. Similar changes are found on smaller scale in some other trades hith- erto devoted to women.
 Perhaps the most human part of this census volume is the section devoted to
 strange trades carried on by women. For instance there are in the whole of Eng land and Wales only three women min isters of religion. The women are now petitioning the Church of England to ad- init them to deacons orders, so that num- Der may soon be increased. There are three women grooms and two women l "sandwichmen"-w who carry adver- 1 tising boards in the streets
 l One girl under 15 and one woman over 70 were among the 210 females employed
 as knackers and cats meat dealers and | one woman over 65 is coal heaver One 1 woman over 75 is a barmaid in a liquor saloon. but the men can set against this aged Ganymede 23 walters over 75 years of age.
 The age of an actress is always a sub 1 Ject of mystery, but the impersonal
 census man manages to find 1t out He l tells us with shocking tack of gallantry
 that there are in England and Wales 1 eight actresses over 75 years old. Out of the total of 911 actresses 3373 returned themselves as being between 25 and 35, l lSo were under b, 1404 under 20, 2557 un- der 25 Rural romance is not yet dead in Eng | ct o{x cfo
 to listen to the piping of the shepherds. One of them is under 20 and another un- der 25, but the census man-perhaps mer- c1fully for romance-does not mention the ages of the other four.
 There are one girl, pilot, one woman coachman, and one woman plumber 1 A rather pathetic table is that dealing
 with ages of charwomen, those domestic drudges, usually widows with children, who go out by day to do the toughest and dirtiest of the household work There are total of 126,061 charwomen of whom only
 2e900 are returned as unmarried. It is
 stated by competent authorities, however,
 that large proportion or these are un- | married mothers. Of the rest 37441 are
 returned as married and 61 .7c0 are widows,
 but 1t is explained that great propor- ton Of the married women have either been deserted by their husbands or pcs 1 scss husbands who are unable or un- wiling to work. There ase 119 s'char- | women between 10 and 15 years old and there are S92 over 75. Tn, largest num- ber 35 456.> are between the ages of 45 | and 55
 Next to the figures dealing with the women perhaps the most significant and | interesting are those showing the enor- lnous growth of officialdom in England. ] According to the figures 5SS 951 persons | are employed in local government work and 249.199 in the national service. If we | add to these the public eleInentary school | teachers and others salaricd by local su- thorities we get total of over 1000 GOO | persons drawing pay from the public purse exclusive altogethe- of the army and navy In other words out of popu- | lation of about 4O,000,0O0 ,ne person in | every 40 is what is expressively termed | in this country ''tax eater" If the chiI- l dren, who are roughly 90 per cent of the | population, are excluded, we get the amazing fact that one person in every 20 | adults in this country is public official | Attention has been drawn, more than once recently, to the effects of this con l dition on the middle class population. It | probably explains the lack of enterprise of the average middle class young Eng
 lishman. He has grown to look on gov | ernment employment of some sort as the most desirable of all, with its security of tenure, given ordinary good conduct | and It's pension at the end of a not too | ionS peFAou ol seIVlce. lt also explains why on emigrating he so often fails | to make good. The mechanic or the farm | CT who is accustomed to rely on him l self, hustles around for job and flnds 1t, but the young middle class Englishman | is so accustomed to having job found | for him and to having his work mapped | out on mechanical plan that he expects | to meet these conditions in a new coun- l try as well as at home. It is interest- | ing to note that the number of ofPicia Is ! in 1911 shows an increase of $ per cent over 1901.
 Some light may be thrown on religious conditions in England by the changes in 1 the number of clergymen of various de- l nominations. In the 10 years there was l a decline in the number of Anglican clergymen from 26,235 tho 24,s5s. Against that there was an increase in the number | of Roman Catholic priests from 2s4s to 33Qe and in the number of nuns from | e45e to 7a57. Tho total number of nunst