THE POLICEWOMAN

Evening Post, Volume XCIII, Issue 46, 22 February 1917, Page 9

THE POLICEWOMAN

The English policewoman has become a sort of mother of the mean streets, where unkempt and uncared-for youngsters spend much of their time. Hei' duty it is to look after their welfare and behaviour day after day, in wet weather and in fine. .

It is not particularly exhilarating or exciting war work, but is none the less necessary, and the women chosen for duty among the children are carefully selected. They are those who have' a love for little children and an understanding of the 'difficulties of tired, overworked mothers. "Don't you get tired of the work?" I asked the children's sergeant, who took nic on her rounds the other day, and she laughed at the very idea.

She had'••spent the morning in Court, but at twelve she led me to a school in one of the.,iiost crowded parts of London. Out "of tile school doors poured hundreds of boys and. girls like a troop of little wild tilings. They were dirty and ragged, but they shouted and danced and ran into the middle of the road— unless they caught the policewoman's eye; then they became models of deportment.

It is quite evident that in the family circles in that neighbourhood a mention ( of the policewoman is a, thing to conjure •with. Yet she is such a pleasant, cheer ful, land "bogey-woman" that the smallest tiny tot places his hand in hers and smiles up at her as she leads him safely across the road.

The London child 6f four is a marvel of self-reliance. He brings himself to school and takes himself home, but the policewoman aces him across the road nowadays, and she sees that no large boys tease him or take his apple or his penny. Those larger boys are the difficulty today. They need the paternal authority, and the dinner hour must be a trial for the harassed mother if she chances to be there, and generally she is not, since she is off at work—or elsewhere —leaving a slice of bread and some cold carrots for her offspring's midday meal. When the children are safely out ot school the children's sergeant patrols the neighbouring streets crowded with women ' gossiping and children playing games or eating bits of bread on the steps of the little houses, each of which shelters several families. Slie stops fights in their infancy, checks boys who wish to turn handsprings in front of carts, picks up the small" girls who fall down,' speaks a kindly word to the weeping child who has a grief she cannot express but which is noisily poignant, and keeps an eagle eye unhooded for the would-be truant.

And her reward is the confidence of those forlorn little mites who grasp her hand with their small grimy fingers, and the bright, grateful smile of those tired, bedraggled women the little ones call mother.—M.R. in a Home paper.