Really, it was like taking the last trench in the Great Push when the women’s battalions arrived at Lombard and Threadneedle streets. That bulwark of the conservatism of the ages, the Bank of England, even, capitulates. And the woman movement has swept directly past the resplendent functionary in the red coat and bright brass buttons who walks up and down before its outer portals like something the receding centuries forgot and left behind on the scene. He still has the habit of challenging so much as a woman visitor. It is a hold-over perhaps from the strenuous days of that other woman movement when every government institution had to be barricaded against the suffragettes, and your hand bag was always searched to see if you carried a bomb. But the bright red gentleman is more likely to let you by now than before 1914. Inside, as you penetrate the innermost recesses, you will go past glass partitioned doors through which are to be seen girls’ heads bending over the high desks. And you will meet girl clerks with ledgers under their arms hurrying across court yards and in and out and up and down all curious, winding, musty passage ways. I know of nowhere in the world that you feel the solemn significance of the new woman movement more than here as you catch the echo of these new footsteps on stone floors where for hundreds of years no woman’s foot has ever trod before. The Bank of England isn’t giving out the figures about the number of its women employés. An official just looks the other way and directs you down the corridor to put the inquiry to another black frock coat. O, well, if that’s the way they feel about it! Others with less ivy on the walls may speak. The London and Southwestern Bank which before the war employed but two women, and these stenographers, now has 900 women. One of London’s greatest banks, the London, City and Midland, has among 3000 employés 2600 women. The new woman in commerce is emerging in England and these are some of the verdicts on her efficiency: Bank of England: “We find the women quick at writing, slow at figures. We have been surprised to find that they do as well as they do. But they are not so efficient as men.” London, City and Midland Bank: “For accuracy, willingness, and attention to duty, we may say that women employés excel.” Morgan and Grenfells: “We employ women on ledger work. But we find they lack the _esprit de corps_ of men. And they don’t like to work after hours.” Barclay’s Bank: “We cannot speak too highly of our women clerks. They have shown great zeal to acquire a knowledge of the necessary details.”