The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-09-23
ENGLISH AND SCOTCH
 GIRLS ARE WORKING IN GREAT SHIP PLANT
Hundreds of Them Are De- ing This in Order to
 Win the War

Glasgow. August 3O.-(Correspond- : ence of the Associated Press. )-The women and girls of England and Scot | land are helping win the war by work l ing as laborers In the greatest of the nations shipbuilding plants Else where female workers perform duties which are made as light as possible for | for them. They drive motor cars and serve as clerks. But in the shipbuild- | ing yards they do work that hereto fore was done by strong men.
 In every yard there are hundreds of them and in one plant just visited by a staff correspondent of the As sociated Press 5000 of them are em- ployed. They are dressed in khaki trousers and belted coats which reach well above the knees Their hair is tucked up under little round khaki caps But they could never be mis- taken for men-nearly all of them in- sist upon wearing high h-heeled shoes, and their tastes run to silk stockings These women and girls for the most part before they started building ships wore cotton hosiery. But now they earn their own money and, as they get the same pay for doing the work men used to do, they can afford silk In any shop or any yard they can be seen garbed like this standing at the front of forges, heating rivets, running cleo. tric machines and cranes. manufactuI- ing on lathes and punches blades for turbines and doing various things to great steel plates which eventually, with others will form the sides of ships. Their hands get dirty with the grease, soot iron stain and other dirts of the shipyards. But their faces seem always to be spotlessly clean.
 Here is the kind of work some Of them do Around a gigantic machine on the banks of the Clyde the core. spondent saw seven girls none over 20 lift q heavy steel plate and while some men held it in place one guided a punch and another swung a lever operating the punching mechanism They were working as if their lives depended upon speed and they worked like well trained team.
 The machine adjoining was high speed saw for cutting heavy steel parts. Before this were standing two girls-in high-heeled shoes. silk stock ings and khaki suits Both had on gog gles to protect their eyes from the shower of shooting sparks from the steel saw. their caps were pulled well down over their ears. They. too. were working hard and seemed to like 1t. After working for four or five min utes the steel part had been sawed up into the proper lengths. Then the saw was stopped and the girl who had been doing the actual saving flicked steel dust from her jacket and proceeded to wipe precipitation from her brow with a handkerchief about the same size as one would expect to see in the hands of shopper on Fifth avenue. Then she hoisted her trousers after the manner employed by sailors and went off to luncheon in a special little building which has been erected by the shipbuilding company for the conl- fort of it's female employees.
 Tt isn't really hard work" said one of these girls. "even if it is little different from the things we all have been doing before. I used to work in the office of a Glasgow hotel This is rougher. of course. but then I feel that I am helping my country. and, be- sides, if I do work little harder It doesn't hurt me and I get mora money"
 Foremen and managers of many of the yards have said that they were perfectly satisfied with the work done by the female employees. At least one expressed himself as being mol 6 pleased with the work of the women and girls than he was with the men whose jobs they are filling None, however. would even venture to guess what will happen when the men re
 turn to the plants from the army and navy after the war is over. With the demand for tonnage as great after the war as it is now. however. one man ager thought that, for some years ta come girls and women would be work ing in the yards