What’s happened from Mrs. Black’s headache is like a tale from the “Arabian Nights.” A magic wand has been waved over the factory. “It should be made,” a Frenchman told me in his enthusiasm, “a little Paradise for woman.” And that seems to be the way they’re feeling everywhere. Government solicitude in England for the new woman in industry resulted in 1916 in a new act for the statute books under which the Home Office is given wide powers to arrange for her comfort. The scientists of a kingdom have been engaged to study “Woman.” Their observations and deductions are every little while embodied in a “white paper.” There have been some fourteen of these “white papers” through which the discoveries are disseminated to the factories. There is a staff of great chemists in government laboratories who arrange the menus just mentioned, which are really formulas for efficiency. Fat, protein and carbohydrates have been carefully proportioned to produce the requisite calories of energy for a maximum output. They emphasise the importance of the canteen with this announcement: “For a large class of workers, home meals are hurried and, especially for women, too often consist of white bread and boiled tea. Probably much broken time and illness result from this cause.” There is a staff of competent architects who were first called in that there might be provided a place in which to eat the carefully prepared meals. “Environment,” it is announced, “has a distinct effect on digestion.” So a White Paper submitted diagrams for the canteen building. “The site,” it said, “should have a pleasant, open outlook and a southern aspect. The interior should present a clean and cheerful appearance. The colour scheme may be in pink, duck’s-egg green or primrose grey.” Estimates are furnished. A dining-room to be built on the basis of 8.5 square feet of space per person may be erected at a cost not to exceed 7 pounds per place. Table and cookery equipment can be installed at a rate for 1,000 employés of 30 shillings, 500 employés 32 shillings, and 100 employés 47 shillings per head. And well, you know how it is when you put so much as a back porch on the house. You sometimes get so interested in improving, that you can’t stop. Often you remodel the whole house. Well, the factory had to keep up with the new dining-room. The White Papers began to say that the workroom windows had better be washed, and the ceilings whitewashed and for artificial lighting, shaded arc-lights were recommended. “The question of lighting,” the report reads, “is of special importance, now that women are employed in large numbers. Bad lighting affects the output unfavourably, not only by making good and rapid work more difficult, but by causing eye-strain.”