The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-10-13

close cropped heads. Bless me- don know what the world is coming to. at all, or whats going to happen to these
 men-women when the war Is over and they've got to get back into what used
 to be, womans boundary"
 Undoubtedly there will be lots of prob lems of this kind after we have re-
 arranged the world. I am afraid war
 girls will be one of the biggest prob
 lems, for undoubtedly they are taking
 the bit in their teeth as far as Eng
 land is concerned at any rate. 1 know
 two pretty sisters, one who is just 2l and the other just IS. They have an ex- ceedingly good job in the war office and also little private money They live at home and their mother and father are rather quiet people
 The two girls, however. have set up within their beautiful, old-fashioned home l the red flag of revolution. They have their own latch-keys. they have taken | possession of a certain number of rooms | in the big house which they do not permit their parents to enter because | they say that they are wage-earning and independent individuals, and. there ! fore. if their mother and father object to their mode of life they can leave home and live independently of any re- strictions They wear uniform, and they smoke continually. They have their own | circle of friends and they seem to do pretty well what they like.
 l we are independent members of the l community" they say, and we are do- | ing work of national importance and we are, therefore, entitled to develop | our lives along our own lines. We are | very fond of our parents. but their ideas do not keep pace either with ours or with the times we live in-so what are 1 you going to do about it?"
 1 This is the attitude taken by these girls ] and a good many others who are repre- l sentative of type that seems to have | received fresh impetus during the last | three years Whether it is good for | England that these Ideas should grow
 and strengthen in the mind of the young l womanhood of today is a very difficult question to answer They are doing fine i work and at the moment, owing to the stress and struggle in the world. the ! work that they perform is Of vital im- 1 portance but what of the time to come2 VIII these hearty, healthy, independent creatures who seem to have invented
 a third. sex quite fit in with the ob- | ligations of the future? You can plunge l deeper and deeper into the subject and | vet seefn to come no nearer solid ground. l However. here in London you can see 1 them in their thousands, and probably i in America also, this new breed of Wom- an is gaining. When l left New 1ork | | quite such insistent individuallsm on ! the part of women there as I do in Lon Isdon now American women as l saw l them then were much more feminine than these thousands of war workers over here. I daresay as the conflict con tinues the same conditions Will begin to l obtain in the states. Certainly the new woman is a creature to be gloried in and to be thankful for, but also her progress is to be feared and one won ders what will be the end of it all.
 | I don't know why but l feel no spe- l cial inclination to deal with personali ties this week. In London fife seems so very big and the outlook so tremendous that really individuals matter very lit 1 tle You mention the small names of | people who glint land goss over the surface of town fife and then you read some glorious bit of news from the front I where all the allies are pushing onward to certain victory To drop down into
 the ordinary twaddling observations con- cerning somebody's frock and somebody else's dinner party makes on feel al- most ashamed of the littleness of the | biggest city in the world.
 All the same, London looks very cheer full, masking as she does in the sun shine of good news. What strikes me most about these victory days is that here so few flags flutter their joyous messages to the skies. In New York l my most vivid remembrance is of Fifth avenue ablaze with hundreds of flags that are just hung out because the na- ton is at war. In London, I suppose, we are reserving our bunting to the very end when things have really happened and the big drama is over.
 l It Is just a difference in the tenn perament of the two peoples at war. I am afraid many of these American sol
 >diers over here feel it and fall to un- derstand it. After my long sojourn on your side of the water the temperament tai differences between the two nations often make me impatient. see a picture at a cinema of our victorious troops and the audience looks on. appreciative