THE LAND LASSIES.

Ohinemuri Gazette, Issue 3941, 8 July 1918, Page 3

THE LAND LASSIES.

ENGLISH GIRLS TO THE RESCUE

j Mr Harold Begbie writes in a Lorij don paper of the Land Lasses of England. ■ "Something like 300,000 wo--1 men,'' he says, "have rolled up their sleeves (most of them have discarded their skirts) and are now working like niggers, in breeches and gaiters, to save this little island from starvation. But for these Land Lasses, as we call them, England would not be able to beast that of all the belligerent countries she alone has increased her agricultural output during the war. They have gone into the fields of England, these brave Land Lasses, just as the Old Contemptibles went out to France in August, 1914 ; they have gone to field labour with that spirit of gaiety, that larking and jesting spirit, that singing and laughing spirit, which is so characteristic of their race, and which acts like camouflage in hiding a patriotism, a de- | votion, a heroism, which would blush scarlet to express itself in serious language. Mr Begbie, who has visited nearly every kind of war worker in the United Kingdom, is inclined to place the Land Lasses first on. the list for courage and absolute heroism. Incidently he says they are the worst paid of all war workers.

It is interesting to note that the land girls of old England prefer any sort of weather to the heat. "I asked some of these girls who work in the Vale of Evesham which sort of weather they' like best—hot sunshine or cold and rain. They told me instantly that they much prefer cold and rain. The thing that knocks them over, the thing that tries their courage to the last ounce, is a blazing sun beating down on their backs as they stoop over plants in an open field."

These farm lasses who work outside from dawn to dark, sometimes have their domestic needs attended to by the father of the family, as witness Mr Begbie's account of a visit to an English village. "When I paid a visit to this admirable lady I found a condition of things in her cottage which witnessed strikingly to the topsyturvydom of war. For there indoors, watching the Sunday dinner on the stove, laying the table, cutting the bread, and attending to the fire, was the lady's father, a dear little old gentleman retired from the Civil Service, and too asthmatical to undertake any laborous work. This old gentleman gets up early in the morning and makes a cup of tea for his daughter and her companion on the land. While they are working in the fields he gets breakfast ready and does the housework. Imagine -the return of these two girls in breeche; and gaiters and smock to a bright kitchen prepared for them by a dear old gentleman in a tail coat."

The English woman on the'land is certainly not at play. Her work is hard and her hours are terribly long, and her remuneration is very small. "These girls plough and dig. Except for the lifting of great weights, there is nothing a man does on a farm which they cannot do. The most tremendous thing of all they do, in my humble opinion, is to keep on hoeing for a whole day under a broiling sun. In the fruit-picking season they arc up at 3.45 in the morning. Their reward for 15 hours' hard work, backbreaking work, is four shillings. They don't complain. It takes the highest courage to stick at this kind of work."