vages of the present war, when once
peace is signed. In that recovery, how great a part may yet be played by
these war workshops!--transformed to the uses of peace; by their crowds of
work-people, and by the hitherto unused intelligence they are everywhere
evoking and training among both men and women.

As for the following day, my impressions, looking back, seem to be all a
variant on a well-known Greek chorus, which hymns the amazing--the
"terrible"--cleverness of Man! Seafaring, tillage, house-building,
horse-taming, so muses Sophocles, two thousand three hundred years ago;
how did man ever find them out? "Wonders are many, but the most wonderful
thing is man! _Only against death has he no resource_."

_Intelligence_--and _death_! They are written everywhere in these endless
workshops, devoted to the fiercest purposes of war. First of all, we visit
the "danger buildings" in the fuse factory, where mostly women are
employed. About 500 women are at work here, on different processes
connected with the delicate mechanism and filling of the fuse and gaine,
some of which are dangerous. Detonator work, for instance. The Lady
Superintendent selects for it specially steady and careful women or girls,
who are paid at time-and-a-quarter rate. Only about eight girls are
allowed in each room. The girls here all wear--for protection--green
muslin veils and gloves. It gives them a curious, ghastly look, that fits
the occupation. For they are making small pellets for the charging of
shells, out of a high-explosive powder. Each girl uses a small copper
ladle to take the powder out of a box before her, and puts it into a
press which stamps it into a tiny block, looking like ivory. She holds her
hand over a little tray of water lest any of the powder should escape.
What the explosive and death-dealing power of it is, it does not do to
think about.

In another room a fresh group of girls are handling a black powder for
another part of the detonator, and because of the irritant nature of the
powder, are wearing white bandages round the nose and mouth. There is
great competition for these rooms, the Superintendent says! The girls in
them work on two shifts of ten and one-half hours each, and would resent a
change to a shorter shift. They have one hour for dinner, half an hour for
tea, a cup of tea in the middle of the morning--and the whole of Saturdays
free. To the eye of the ordinary visitor they show few signs of fatigue.

After the