The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-11-23
ENGLISH WOMEN
Do MANS WORK
Operate FL u &c Factories
Turning Out Munitions of
War for Country.
(By HALL CATNE.)

sense of it's colossal presence, it's i'm
mense significance, the tremendous
force it stands for.
It's origin dates back to other wars,
but when the present war began it's
workers were only 1000 in ALL With
out woman of their number. Now
there are 1900 women and $4,000
men.
| That is not all. Notwithstanding it's
fierce reality, Woolwich is symbol
rather than a geographical express
| sion.
To that center on the Thames IL
miles by 3 IL, with it's numberless
workshops, it's endless avenues and
it's $50 miles of internal railway,
there lead the activities of scores of
associates factories round about; so
that 10000 workers more, chiefly
women $4,000 in alD, are feeding
this almost fathomles reservoir
| Woolwich is a great mechanical oc-
| topus with arms that reach over,
across and around London and the
country about it.
| Before going into the women's
workshops you are taken to the
! FORCES of the men, for it is impossible
to come to Woolwich without seeing
| the awful basilicas of bridled force in
| which the mammoth guns are Great
| ed.
| Here is one Of them, vast place,
as big as Albert Hall. A colossal Mas
| myth hammer, with a blow of 40 tons
is pounding on a thick block of white
| hot ste1. First a gentle tap to make
sure Of position and then a thunder
GUS thud that makes the arth quake
beneath your feet.
With Scarcely a Sound.
A few moments latery GU are in an
| other vast forge, but here there is
nearly no noise and hardly any mo-
| ton. A gigantic press of 1000 tons
| power is drilling a, hole through an
other enormous block Of Witch OF
| metal.
The great thing seems almost as
! large as the facade of st. Marks at
! Venice, and not unlie it in form, al
I though stark and black.
Under its open arch, without a
sound or the appearance of a hand
to guide them, and with a motion
| that is almost ghostIike, the great
ahvils with their burning freight
glide into position.
A score of stalwart men, stripped
| to the waist, stand around with their
iron rods and pinches.
They push a thick black ring of
apparently cold metal on the top OF
the white-hot block. One man stands
under a huge clock with his hand on
the lever.
No one speaks. There is scarcely a
sound
Presently there comes slowly down,
as from the keystone of the monster
machine, a shining column of steel
1t reaches the black ring, presses
| down on it descends without a pause
to the white-hot block, rests on top
! of it for "a moment, there is a thud
as Of something falling into a pit be-
| meath, and then the column rises, the
arch is responded, and the ring has
disappeared, having passed through
| the metal and dropped to the ground
| below.
| The sense Of silent, irresistible,
| left you breathless.
| Like Hecla's Flaming Pits.
After another few minutes you are
| in the smelling houses. Here are
lines of furnaces, some locked, but
with CLEANS of imprisoned fire look
| ing out at you from the interstices
of the shutters like ferocious eyes;
| some open and pouring out liquid
metal into moulds in blue and yellow
| flame.
Then there. are huge ovens, from
| whose sglittering depths, lit as by
| thousands of electric lamps, long rib
| bons of red hot steel are being drawn
| at the ends of pincers by half-striped
| men with the sweat pouring down
| their blackened faces
Then smithies where shells in their
earliest processes are being shaped,
| under fire and hammer, from rough
blocks of metal into round things
with noses, and flung off from the
| cranes or anvils to roll away and
cool.
| And then underground pits of fire
| from which sinuous tongues of many
colored flames are esca ping into the
air-reminding you, if you have
| travelled SO far, of the boiling SOL
fataras on the breast of Hecla,
| among which you have walked with
fear, knowing that one false step
might be fatal or perhaps with the
| Intoxicating fumes of sulphur in your
nostrils dropped to your knees and
| cra-wled.
Most Awesome Sight.
| But perhaps the most awesome of
all sights in Woolwich is that Of the
| big furnace house for manufacture
ing the steel.
| I think I have witnessed on various
parts of the world many scenes of
| nature in her wrath-scenes of earth
| quake, eruption, tidal wave, geyser.
and boiling river-but I doubt if I
| have ever been more awed, more
moved, and in a sense more terrified,
1 than by the spectacle here presented
of the physical forces of Nature
chained and harnessed to the work
| Of men.
A huge c1ay-co1ored oven, shapeless
like wart, 80 to 40 feet high, top
ped with an open mouth like the
crater of a small volcano. belchine
out q thick column of hungry flame.
which comes with blast and roar
as from the bowels of the earth. driy-
en- up by some frantic subterranean
tempest, and scattering showers of
blue stars in the ring about it.
The light is SO fierce that you put
| colored glasses before your eyes to
protect them; the noise is so deafen-
| ing that it browns all human speech.
And round the furance stand the
half-stark furnacemen, Is to 20 feet
| away, but within the radius of its
| sweltering heat, silhoueted even in
the glistening light Of the vast cham
1 I>Ay 1,cf +1o0