THE POLICEWOMAN.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 944, 19 February 1917, Page 4

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. Her 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 i exciting war work, but is none the less necessary, and the women chosen for duty i 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 me 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 most crowded parts of London. Out of the school doors poured hundreds of boys and girls like a troop of little wild things. They were dirty and ragged, but they shouted ami 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. Vet she is such a pleasant, cheerful, kind " 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 of four is a marvel of self-reliance, lie brings himself to school and takes himself home, but the policewoman sees 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 to-day. 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 olf 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 of 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. She stops fights in their infancy, checks boys who wish to turn handsprings in front of carts, picks up the small girls wdio fall down, speaks a kindly work to the weeping child who has a grief she cannot express but which is noisily poignant, and keeps tin eagle eye j 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 lingers, and j the bright, grateful smile of those tired, j bedraggled women the little ones call ! mother. —M.R. in a Home paper.