BANK GIRLS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 226, 12 June 1918, Page 2

BANK GIRLS

BY ONE QV TEEM.

"Stick a pin in my hair for me, there's a dear. 1 washed it last night and there's no doing anything with it today." The request sounds strangely out of placo in the almost reverent silence of the spacious corridor, but then so much that is seemingly out of place occurs there nowadays. The old order has changed here iis much as easewnoro, though the feminine inviisiou has come with no sweeping rush but has progresse<l by subtle stages. Tho "Bank Girl" may Ijave experienced little or nothing of the eulogy bestowed on sonio of her sister workers, but she has gradually become as much of an institution as the multiplicity of other "Girls" who are a creation of the- war.

To see hor at work is to receive a double realisation concerning the Bank Girl. First comes a sense that, though frequently recruited from a class that necessity has never trained to a habit of steady industry, this girl worker is yet evincing as much, adaptability as many a sister in another sphere.

Tho second impression is one that brings in its train quite a refreshing feeling of relief. Here is n girl who in Iho midst of tho development of so many new typos of womanhood still retains ft number of the essentially feminine qualities. Onri would imagine, rather, that a constant intimacy with figures might be expectdd to produce a habit of silent concentration. Far fram it. The Bank Girl exhibits a marvellous capacity for doing two things at a time. She will flirt—and list' amounts; cast formidable columns—and conduct a running undercurrent of strictly frirlish gossip. Figures and flippancy go hand in hand in a strange, inconenioua alliance.

Tho Bank Girl can work, and work well, but sho does it with a careless joyousness', u sort of irresponsibility that recalls rather refreshing visjoiis of prowar girlhood. And she still retains all the little inconsistencies' and vanities of her sex, her old ideas of romance, and, in spite, of tho havoc of war, her little secret dreams of "a very perfect gentle knight." •

"One hundred, one hundred and eight, one hundred and niiieteon," one catches; and in the same breath, "Ho isn't married, so there! I know it for n fact." And from another eidi, "Would you tako this for a i or a 7? Might be either hv thu look of it. ... No. really? Do you think it .would look nicer with ft ribbon in, Hko Gladys's P"

But of coiirso the Bank Girl no less than her sister workers can point to wiiilitios winch are a result of her new environment. She is acquiring a quick confidence tltft carries with it a 6enso of high capability, and a,ready aieriness that augurs well for her perception and judgment in the future. There 13 evident, too, that spirit.of camaraderie whichhas swept away so many of tlie old onbwebe since the war began. The "clique" finds a na-tural fostering soil in the class from which the Bank Girl is largely drawn, but among the girls themselves it is dying, if it is not actually dead. It is never "my bank," or the bunk of a particular sector, but "our bunk," in a tone .that indicates a certain pride and carries a suggestion of this fianio loyalty that a public school lireeda.

Certainly this girl worker should preRent less of an after-the-war problem thau many other feminine employees. Self-reliant and confident she is, but with nono of the aggressive aseerhveness so noticeable in sonio other directions. Clever, too, in inany cases, with a mental agility that is surprising when ono considers her limited experience of this type of work; but it is a mental power that does not override her essential girlish qualities. Arid, best of all, she is afflicted with none of the feverish restlessness that looks like presenting a great difficulty when some of our girl workers resume the old trammels.

She is certainly a product of tlie old and the new, but the new is not obtrusive in her case;'instead, old and new are welded in a lumnony that need add no note to the future's inevitable clash of discord.—"Daily Mail." • ■