NEW ERA FOR WOMEN

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 19 May 1928, Page 11

NEW ERA FOR WOMEN

fJTHE death of Mrs Cooper, the “Firework Queen,” who. lor more thirn fifty y?ars superintended the girls’ department or a him of firework makers and knew all there, was to know about the trade, says a London, paper, lias drawn attcnition to the tact that throughout the l world women an? engaged in queer, unusual occupations. To-day women are free to select almost any profession or trade that appeals to them—-and a. number have maile a strange choice. There were actually flirty* women among the five hundred applicants for the post of official executioner in Hungary. Recently the Home Office, appointed .Miss Alary Size as deputy-governor of Holloway Pr:.w;n, where she is doing valuable work. She is the only woman in F.nglaod to hold such a position. One uf the strangest clubs in existence i- run by a woman. She i,s Miss Marjorie Kvan Thomas, who, with an ex-burglar, has started .the “Run Straight Chub.” which meets at All Hallows’ Church, Mark Lam?, and in the crypt of St. Afartin-in-the-Fields. Membership is exclusively confined, to those who have been in prison, but who are_ determined never to be put in again.

There i« a flourishing Society of Women Engineers. One of its besitknown members is Alias Af. Partridge, who is a •director of four electrical companies. and ha.s had vast experience a« a contractor for the lighting of country houses and churches.

Girls hear the call of the .si?a jus|t as insistently as their brothers. A few are working as marine engineering, super ipfendents. and some have qualified as shins’ designers or architects. . One girt—Miss Victoria Drummond—is an experienced ship’s engineer, for she has

UNUSUAL OCCUPATIONS

h?en on a four months, voyage, during vn.irh she regularly took lior watch. A number of women nave passed thpir Board of Trade tests to command their own vessels, some are yachting enthusiasts, whilst others are listed as owners of cargo boats. The last census return showed live women included among ligh'thou.sekeejieiiis or the crews of lightships. A search of the dockyards w ill reveal a. handful of women who are deckhands or ship's loaders, sorp? of them being enipoyed m coaling.

Few women are astronomeiv*', but those few are extraordinarily .successful, Mile. Educe Ohandon, a famous Fnwh astronomer, classified 700,000 stars, and wins able to judge their distance almost at a glance, a feat which generally entails laborious, measurements. Mrs Walter [.Maunder,, of the British Astronomical Association, has been, on oxpedif ions to Lapland, Labrador, Mauritius, and India.

One i/ondon woman makes glass eyes, and another is a professional tea-taster. Six are undertakers —mon? by inheritance than choice. They attend to the business side, and .leave their male assistants to conduct funerals. As for steeplejacks—of all nerfl-ouisi trades — the daughter of a Leeds steeplejaclkjuxjbablv holds the record for her sex. When on.lv 17 she climbed one of the tallest erhimnevs in the country, a height of 303 ft.. ' - ‘

Everyone who travels (to the Continent knows the woman official in the Custom House at Calais. She took her husband’s place during thi? war, and after bis death was permitted to retain it. She is the terror of the amateur smuggler. Her keen dark eyes as? quick to detect (the new nalr of silk stockings or the extra bottle of eau-de-Cologne.