THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 28, 3 February 1915, Page 8

THE WOMEN OF ENGLAND.

Writing of “The Spirit of Service,” which is so noticeable among women since war started, one writer says:— “The other day 1 heard somebody express a timid hope that if and when the allied troops invaded Germany there would be no reprisals ‘in kind’ for the cruel sufferings of the Bel-

gians. “You needn’t have the slightest fear of that,” said a stout lady, whose husband and four sons are all soldiers; “we wouldn’t have it, not for a single minute.”

The Englishman makes no parade of his devotion to his mother, but for the most part he does remember that there are tliipgs she “won’t have.” ’Phis spirit of service is, above all things, a sturdy spirit, cheerful, and of a good courage. One sees it at its best among the women of the people. One of these, a woman, many years a widow, who had always worked hard and “kept herself respectable,” was talking of her only son, a stoker in the Navy. It was just after the war began, and his ship was in The North Sea. Some officious friend had been rubbing it into her that, as he was unmarried, she. ought to draw his- pay in his absence. She declared that she “always ’ad kep’ ’ersclf,” and she didn’t expect him to keep her while she could work. The friend persisted, saying she ought to draw his pay; it was her right. “At last, I fairly lost my temper,” she said, “an’ T up and says to ’er. ‘D.am ’is pay! It’s ’im I wants and not ’is pay; let it save up for ’im till ’e comes back. . . if ’e comes back. . . but there, after all, it’s no use frottiu’. Me and > Queen Mary’s in the same box.’ ” It is just this identity of situation that not only makes women want to lie wondrous kind just now, but en. dows them with a calculated courage, a species of “hardy and high serenity” that no other conceivable set of circumstances could induce.