BOY AND GIRL WAR PRODUCTS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 80, 30 December 1918, Page 2

BOY AND GIRL WAR PRODUCTS

A CHANGT! FOK TUB WORSE.Under the above title Edith Sellers gives in the .October "Nineteenth Century and" After", a far .from pleasant picture of the oft'ects which the war seems to have had upon ,the boys 'and'girlsmore particularly the. Rirlf? —of England who have commenced work, during the past four years.' It is not among the elder girls who .were at work beforo the war, and during it have undertaken men's-work,, that, she has noted the chango for the worse, since .of the thousands of such girls making munitions, digging, ploughing, nnd tending .cattle, the overwhelming majority, she declares have not lost a shfcd. of their womanliness. The deteriorintion is in those who. have left the elementary schools and commenced fending for themselves..since' the war began. Last.winter ffiss Sellers spent several weeks near a huge camp and within' easy reach of 11 military hospital and convalescent home. The soldiers were quiet nnd orderly, "and demeaned themselves well , 'towards the women iiiid. "iris.who ciiine'in. (heir wav. i'liß majority of women and girls' hi the' place behaved as well as the men; butwith the young girl's, many "of them with their hair down their backs, it wns quite otherwise. ]f asked fo do anything they at once wax resentful; if told not to do it their one desire is to do it. Some of them seem to eherish .1 grievance against everyone';'others to be bent on giving everyone a grievance to cherish I .tgainst them.'. It is as if they'thoiißlit the whole world was 'ngninsl- them, trying to put upon them, and wore therefore 'up in iVrms against'everyone; even their own nearest relative?. Young girls in trams and trains, in offices, iind above'all in shops", hnvebeeii getting more and more uncivil, more and more aswrtive'. ' Boys, •according to this writer, show their rebelliousness in ix different fashion/ "They are less Ismaelitish, less aggressive. They content themselves with kicking those who bar their way, whereas girls are prone to go out of their way to find someono to' kick.

.... Among them is no rioting. • One almost wishes, indeed, that there were, as one looks at some of their faces, they seem to have grown so appallingly old during the last four years, so appallingly grasping', too. A perfect shrimp of n boy asked me .to find a place for- him. I olfered him one with 175.. a-week to begin willh He was quite shocked. Ho must have twice us much, he told me, ho could not do with less, nnd he really ought to have more." The high wages that boys and girls have been able to earn has made them independent of their ■parents, and that is one cause of the lack of control. Another is seemingly the absence of the fathers on service; but in addition Miss Sellars and other observers note that "a curious , , muddleheaded sort of Bolshevism" has of lalo taken possession of many of them. They imagine tlnit the young alone have rights; the young alonn know. - The future belongs to the young, therefore in their eyes the pre.-.ent might to belong to them too. Sliss. Sellnrs points out that many of these boys are overworked, over-wrought, with every nerve ajar, suffering iiliice in mind and body through living nl 100 high a pressure, while at the same time they arc frco lo go I heir own way and have the money wherewith to work their own will. She attributes' miu-li of the juvenile ".Bolshevism" lo lack of sleep, children nowadays being allowed up much too late at nights.

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