The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-06-30
What NeU York Thinks
 OF NeW Conductorettes
Bv NELL FREEMAN SHAPIRO

New York, June 2s.--(Special.)--It would
 almost seem as if the very fate of the
 woman war worker rests in the hands of
 the much-discussed New York "conduc- torette"
 women here have taken up a myriad Of jobs formerly thought to be strictly mems
 jobs, and beyond the ken of the feminine
 They have appeared in all sorts of startling and unusual occupations, and there was never a murmur of protest until the little "conductorette" appeared upon the scene.
 Perhaps it is because conductoring is a comparatively easy, and good-paying l job, and there are still men left who do
 rot believe in goodpaying jobs for won en. Perhaps it is just the last straw which will break the back of the anti | feminist theory.
 Anyway, the conductorette has met with some rather vigorous oppositon-and she has come out on top. She is pleasing | the city authorities, she is pleasing the public. she is pleasing herself, and | it is a safe venture that the conductor ette-as New York insists on calling her lis here to stay, at least for the period of the war, and as to how long there | after-who can say?
 Certain labor organizations of New York have contended that the conductor l cite will work for less pay than the old l style male conductor and that therefore she tends to reduce the wage scale. The l protective spirit is also in evidence, and statements of physicians to the effect ! that too much standing is not good for
 women have been offered as proof that | the conductorette must go. The moral side has been played up considerably, | but street railway operators have found !, that women even night shifts have | caused no breakdown in the morale of the l force. There have been few cases of unpleasant experiences reported by the ! conductorettes, and in such cases prompt arrests and convictions of offenders have followed.
 l All sorts of objections have been of | fered and each has been routed with l dispatch One of the most amusing bits | of evidence which has been offered by | those who are still feebly pursuing their efforts to dispose of the poor little con- ductorette, was an affidavit from a wom- | an passenger on a car that she had dis covered the conductorette spooning with | the male motorman of her car But even l this shocking bit of information failed | to persuade officials to dispense with | the girl conductor. Perhaps they Wise- I iy reflected that if all girls must be barred from conductoring because one of the sex was caught spooning, by the same rule, all males would have to be barred since there was s~ motorman in | the case-and the logical conclusion would be that there would be nobody | at all left to run street cars.
 l It has also been strenuously pressed | that girl conductors would lose theii heads in case of emergency. But little | New York conductorette recently smashed | this theory to pulverized smithereens ir | a most convincing manner.
 | Of course, everybody knows there Is nothing in this world more frightful thar an el'-and as to whole basket of them well, if anything in creation is calcu- lated to provoke a hysterical feminine
 Marathon, surely a mass of writhing | simy eels-just the kind you catch on 2 l ''trot line in the Cahaha-is. the very | limit
 | A man boarded a car in Brooklyn taking his nights catch into Manhat tan for market. He deposited his bas- | ket of eels on the floor at his feet and was soon lost in slumber. At eacf
 station the car became more crowded
 and finally, in the jam, somebody upset
 the basket!
 Of course some of the womer screamed. Perhaps some of the mer
 would have screamed had they not beer too petrified with horror. We'll -dresse business men edged as far away as
 possible; there began a pushing ano