Convention than the Austrian authorities had ever dreamed. She
was thus able to assert herself on behalf of those under her in a way
which taught her captors something new about British women. At the
beginning of February the unit was at last allowed to cross the frontier
into Switzerland. It reached England on February 12. It was only the
perfection of its organization that carried this brave body of women
through amazing hardships.

Abroad women chauffeurs became almost as common in the war as men; the
public in Paris and London refused to regard the appearance of a woman
on the streets in cap, "knickers" and puttees or heavy boots as unusual,
and in need they in many instances not only drove "taxi," but guided
ambulances in the hospital service.

The Red Cross in America, in the matter of preparedness, organized a
class for women chauffeurs. One of these, started in Philadelphia, had
among its instructors Mrs. Thomas Langdon Elwyn and Miss Letitia McKim,
both of whom drove ambulances for the Allies in England.

The National League for Woman Service, working in conjunction with the
Council of National Defense, canvassed the country through its Bureau of
Registration and Information to provide statistics for mobilizing the
entire woman-force of the Nation; all of which was done with the
approval of the Secretary of Labor.

Perhaps the outstanding incident of industrial employment among women
was that of several women in France as locomotive engineers. It is true
that they operated only the shunting engines about the yards at the
military camps, but it was noted in dispatches in every quarter of the
globe that Mesdames Louis Debris and Marie Viard, whose husbands were
killed in the war, were piloting the engines which their husbands had
formerly driven.

WOMAN'S INGENUITY.

And woman has proved her ingenuity. In the damp trenches of the
battlefields abroad the men need protection from the dampness and cold,
which ordinary clothing will not provide. It was found that the
leather-lined huntsmen's coats, and the sort of garments worn by the
chauffeur, the aviator and the mountaineer served the men in the
trenches well, and particularly along the Russian frontier and in the
cold mountainous regions.

But the price of leather soared, with the demand for millions of pairs
of shoes, saddles, harness, headgear, and whatnot, and leather-lined
coats were at a premium. The women were not to be denied, and through
the S