These factories average forty feet wide, and end to end would be 100 feet in length. The roar of the machinery is never silent by day or night. In one factory I saw a young woman who was closely related, through her grandfather, to a man in the House of Lords. Her arms were black with machine oil, her hair was under a rubber cover, she wore bloomers. Her task was pouring two tons of molten steel into the shell moulds. The great shells passed from the hands of one girl to another until the fiftieth girl, 1,500 feet away, finished the threads into which the cap's screw was fastened. Every twenty-four hours these women turn out more small calibre cartridges than all England did the first year of this war. Every forty-eight hours they turn out more large cartridges than all England did the first year of this war. Every six days, with the help of men not fit for the battle front, they turn out more heavy cannon than all England did the first year of this war. They have sent 17,000,900 tons of ammunition to the front. Their shells are roaring on five battle fronts in three continents. When the British boys thrust their huge shells into the cannon these boys literally receive the shells at the hands of the millions of English girls who are passing them forward. Wonderful the heroism of the British soldiers! The reason why the men fight well at the front is because there are women at home worth fighting for. In all ages battles have been won, partly by the strong arm of the soldier, but chiefly by the heart that nerves the arm. That is why John Ruskin once said that "the woman in the rear generally wins the victory at the front." It stirs one's sense of wonder to find that all classes and all social conditions are represented in these factories. Thousands of young school-teachers have left the schoolroom behind, closed the book and desk and gone to the factory. Tens of thousands of young wives and mothers have left their little children with the grandmother. Many rectors and clergymen and priests, unfit for service at the front by reason of age, work all day long in the munition factory. Many a professional man crowds his work in the office that he may reach the factory for at least a few hours' work upon shot and shell. One day in France, as I was entering the factory, I saw perhaps twenty young women come out, hurry across the street to a building where two old crippled soldiers were taking care of the little children. These young mothers nursed their babes, looked after the other children and then hurried back to the factory. Every minute was precious; every day was big with destiny. Their young husbands and brothers and lovers, when the German push came, must have their cartridges and shells ready and in abundance.