Untitled

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 35, 5 November 1917, Page 3

WHAT AMERICAN WOMEN AKE DOING EAGER WAR WORKERS. New York, August 9. When 1 said in an earlier article tlmt I doubted whether "anyone ever learned anything from another's experience," 1 made a.mistaKe. 1 should have said 'Any man." Women have more receptive, more practical minds than men. They do learn from the success and the failure of others. They were all ready to begin war work here as soon as the United States threw off neutrality. They had watched what was done elsewhere by -women. They were busy from the word "Go." Of the more obvious women s activities, such as training to be nurses, organising hospitals, making surgical necessities for the Red Cross, knitting to save soldiers' hands and feet aiid faces from winter's snvage nips, there is no need to say anything save that American women are putting; splendid energy into them, interesting are the special line* they have taken up here. Here is an example. _ In New .Tersey many farmers cannot liire enough people to pick their fruit ami vegetables. Some even began to plough in their crops. Women came to the rescue. II: was suggested that they might do Hie picking themselves. Instead of buying their potatoes and cabbages and fruit in shops New Jersey women went to do their morning's shopping in the fields. Tl' filled their baskets, had the contents valued, paid their monev. and went home well satisfied, feeling all the better for the exercise. Women are hard fll' work, too, proving vegetables themselves, and at this moment they are busy preserving vast quantities" which would be wasted if they were not bottled, canned, dried, or carefully stored.

They do their bit Who can their bit says a "snappy" newspaper headline. President Wilson has himself written an appeal to women to save from rotting the tomatoes, beets, potatoes, beans, cabImages, onions, carrots, peas, peaches, pears, apples, and blackberries which have been growing in vastly inoreased quantities this year. .Eighty-five million glass jars for preserving are. promised by the manufacturers during tho next few weeks. "Canning clubs" have been formed. Women everywhere are responding energetically to the cry, "Help to win tho war." ,

They are banding together also to keep prices within reasonable limits. Here, as everywhere, the"e is ft steady upwiu'il movement in the cost of living; and the difference between prices in differentparts of the citT proves that profiteers are filling their pockets. Fish can be bought aoross the Brooklyn Bridge for 7d. or Sd. a lb. which in tho central residential parts of New York costs from Is. Id. to Is. 4d. Potatoes ore at lid. a ib. in Brooklyn, 3d. elsewhere: eggs vary between 2s. and 2s. 9d. a dozen; best, butter is on sale in one shop at Is. Dd., at 2s. 9d. in others, To prevent the middleman from flepeilig them, women are joining clubs of "direct buyers." With the assistance of the ?ood Department they send their orders to farmers and get their provisions at wholesale prices, with a small charge for carriage added. There is something in this Idea that might be useful even after the war.

Another war change the success of which depends mainly on women is ihe suspension of the "returned goods' system. The New York shops do a great deal of on the "sale or return" plan. They are willing- to send to n customer's house anything from a shoe, horn to a, grand piano on the chance of it being approved and paid for. This means, according to the Commercial Economy Boarcl, that many thousands of people are doine unproductive and -unnecessary worlc. The Government put" fifll-page advertisements in tlie newspapers urging shopkeepers and customer? both to nut an end to this system.-''lf is doomed—at any rate for the period _of the war.—Hamilton Fvfe. in the "Daily Mail."