l woman
clerk who has yet developed anything like a corporate conscience. The
reason is partly that she is often an isolated being. Where there is a
large number of clerks together, as in the Civil Service, there is no
lack of the right spirit.

Here are a few of the causes of the overstocking of the clerical
market by women. Almost any one can be a clerk of a kind. The training
is cheap and easily obtainable. Many parents want their children to
bring in money early, and this seems an easy way. A large percentage
of young girls (in 1907-1909, 87 per cent.) who fail to pass Civil
Service examinations, try to become clerks. Some time ago there was
an article in a daily newspaper entitled "The Passing of the
15s.-a-week-Girl." She is with us in larger numbers than ever,
however, and she has added to her numbers a 10s.-a-week-girl and even
a cheaper girl, as we have seen. We meet her daily in Tube and 'bus,
looking remarkably attractive, in spite of foolish shoes and a bad
habit of eating four-penny lunches. The chief charge some of her
fellow clerks have against her, apart from her inferior work, is that
she only makes use of typing as a road to marriage. The other class of
offender is the daughter of well-to-do parents. Typing is regarded
as a ladylike employment, and parents, who would never expect their
daughters to be self-supporting, are glad for them to earn pocket
money or just enough for dress.

According to Mr Elvin of the National Union of Clerks, even in
prosperous times there are always 3 per cent. of unemployed clerks. In
bad times the percentage must be greater. Whether the times are good
or bad, young girls with the most elementary education are being
turned out by hundreds from typing schools.

The only remedy is that the output of clerks should be restricted; no
one should be allowed to become a clerk who has not reached a certain
standard of efficiency. The parents are the chief offenders. Many of
them do not seem to have the necessary energy or intelligence to find
out for what their daughters are best fitted. Advisory Committees are
wanted in connection with all elementary and secondary schools. Of the
girl typists and shorthand writers who resigned from the Civil Service
from 1894 to 1906 for various causes, 17 per cent. left to take up
other work. The lady superintendent in one of the Civil Service typing
rooms pointed out a girl and said: "That girl would have made an
excellent milliner or a kind