Mrs. Black, to begin with, has her “separation allowance” because her husband’s at the front. That’s 12 shillings and sixpence per week for herself, 5 shillings for the first child, three shillings sixpence for the second and 2 shillings for each subsequent child. Well, with the five children, that makes 27 shillings a week coming in and there’s none of it going to the Great Boar’s Head on the corner, which always used to get a look-in on Mr. Black’s weekly wage envelope before Mrs. Black did. Now, in addition to this 27 shillings a week, which in itself is 5 shillings more than the family ever had before, Mrs. Black is at the factory where she is making 30 shillings a week. That’s 57 shillings a week, which is her household income more than doubled. It’s why 60,000 fewer persons in London were in receipt of poor relief in September, 1915, than in 1903, the previous most prosperous year known to the Board of Trade. In the West End of this town titled families are counting their “meatless” days. In the East End, families are celebrating meat days that were never known before the war. The Care Committee used to have to provide boots for over 300 school children in this district. This year there was only one family, the mother of which was ill, that needed boots! RIGHT THIS WAY, LADIES, INTO INDUSTRY Mrs. Lewis, this is the answer to your anxious inquiry: it’s prosperity that’s coming to you. In every warring country there are women of the working classes who have found it. You are going to be mobilised for the army of industry as your husband for the other army. Only there is no draft or conscription necessary. The recruiting station is just down the street at the factory that recently hung out that sign bright with new paint, “Women Wanted.” See them arriving at the entrance gate. Fall in line, Mrs. Lewis, and get measured for your new uniform. Yes, you are to have one. It’s some form of the things they call trousers. But I’m sure you won’t mind that. Put it on. Put it on quickly. In it you will find yourself the real new woman whose coming has hitherto been only proclaimed or prophesied on the waving banners of suffrage processions you’ve watched parading on the avenues. You are She for whom the ages have waited. This new garment they are handing you has the pocket in it for a pay envelope. You who have been toiling for your board and the clothes you could get after the rest of the family had theirs, are now a labourer worthy of hire. Economic independence, the political economists call it, as they take their pen in hand to make note of the long lines of you going into industry, later to write their deductions into scientific treatises about you.