WOMEN IN INDUSTRY AND PUBLIC LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 240, 7 October 1916, Page 17

WOMEN IN INDUSTRY AND PUBLIC LIFE.

Mrs. Arthur Griffith was the first woman to fly from the Aviation School at Richmond, Victoria, and she ia elated with the journey through the air. In fact, it is preferable to motoring, in her opinion, and she is in the near future becoming a pupil of the pilot instructors at Richmond.

There is a spot in England from which you can see the smoke of 400 or 500 munition factories, one of them, according to the British Press Bureau, being the largest of the many the Munitions Department has on hand. No fewer than 8,000 workers are employed here doing nothing but fill shells or other cases with the most deadly explosives known to science. At least 80 per cent of these operatives are women and young girls from 14 years up. Special trains convey them to and from their homes < in the neighbouring city. Most of these appear to work for ten hours a day, and earn as much as 30/ a week.

Mrs. M. M. Wilcher, formerly of the Melbourne Women's Hospital, and later in charge at St. George's Hospital, Kew, has just been appointed a policewoman in Adelaide. Prior to her appointment, Mrs. Wilcher has for some *months held the position of Inspectress of Licensed Fostcrmothers in South Australia State Children's Department.

It has often been said that women are more thorough in the work which they undertake than men. Amongst the various pursuits formerly filled by men in Melbourne, but now invaded by the fair sex, is that of photography— even Press photography. A lady photographer at social and public gatherings is now occasionally visible to the naked eye. She takes her work very seriously, and whilst "on the job" is no respecter of persons, and has only one thought —the securing of a successful negative. Miss Betham-Edwards has her home in a southern English town, up on a picturesque cliff overlooking the fishing. She ie a frail old lady now, but still writes a little of her beloved France and about the Suffolk peasants, whom she used to delineate so well.