fore a year had passed the surplus hands had
been absorbed, and a shortage of labor power was beginning to be felt.

And now opens the war drama set with the same scene everywhere. Women
hurry forward to take up the burden laid down by men, and to assume the
new occupations made necessary by the organization of the world for
military conflict. To tell of Germany is merely to speak in bigger
numbers. Women in munitions? Of course, well over the million mark.
Trolley conductors? Of course, six hundred in Berlin alone before the
first Christmas. Women are making the fuses, fashioning the big shells,
and at the same heavy machines used by the men. That speaks volumes--the
same heavy machines. Great Britain and France have in every case
introduced lighter machinery for their women. But, whatever the
conditions, in Germany the women are handling high explosives, sewing
heavy saddlery, operating the heaviest drill machines. Women have been
put on the "hardest jobs hitherto filled by men." In the
German-Luxemburg Mining and Furnace Company at Differdingen, they are
found doing work at the slag and blast furnaces which had always
required men of great endurance. They work on the same shifts as the
men, receive the same pay, but are not worked overtime "because they
must go home and perform their domestic duties."

One feels the weight of the German system. Patient women shoulder double
burdens. They always did.

In the Post and Telegraph department there is an army of fifty thousand
women. The telephone service is entirely in their hands, and running
more smoothly than formerly. Dr. Kaethe Schirmacher declares comfortingly
in the _Kriegsfrau_ that "one must not forget that these women know many
important bits of information--and keep silent." Women have learned to
keep a secret!

One hundred and eighty nurses, experts with the X-ray, were in the front
line dressing stations in the early days of the war, and before a week
of conflict had passed women were in the Field Post, and Frau Reimer,
organizer of official chauffeurs, was on the western line of attack.

Agriculture claims more women than any occupation in Germany. They were
always on the farm, perhaps they are happier there now since they
themselves are in command. It is said that "the peasants work in the
boots and trousers of their husbands and ride in the saddle." War has
liberated German women from the collar and put them on horseback!

But strangest and most unex