Returning to the dining-hall, we descend a flight of steps into the spacious dressing-rooms, with vistas of wooden screens, filled on each side with numbered hooks. Here every morning the thousands of girls not only divest themselves of their outer garments, but change their dresses for washing frocks of white holland. The material for these is provided by the firm, free for the first, and afterwards at less than cost price, and the girls are required to start work in a clean frock every Monday morning. It will be seen at once how this helps them to keep neat and respectable; their strong white washing frocks only being soiled by their work, after which they change back into their own unstained clothes, and turn out looking as great a contrast to the usually pictured type of factory girl as can be imagined. The forewomen also conform to this arrangement, but wear washing
dresses of blue cotton to distinguish them from the girls. Round the walls of this vast dressing-room hot-water pipes are placed, and over these are shelves where on a rainy day wet boots can be deposited to dry. Specially thoughtful is the provision of rubber snow-shoes, imported from America for their use, and supplied under cost price. Beneath each stool, too, is a shelf for heavy boots, which can be replaced in the factory by slippers.
Mention has already been made of the provision for illness or accidents, and of the care shown in the many arrangements for maintaining and improving the health and physical development of the girls. Further evidence of this is found in the airy and well-lighted work-rooms, from which funnels and exhaust fans collect and carry off all dust,
and improve the ventilation, so that in spite of the multitudinous operations in progress, the whole place is kept as "spick and span" as a ship of the line. But another aggressive sign of the firm's belief in the motto mens sana in corpore sano is the presence of a lady whose whole time is devoted to the physical culture of the girls. Trained in Swedish athletics, this lady and her assistant undertake the teaching, not only of gymnastics, but of swimming and numerous games. Every day drill classes are held, an opportunity being thus provided for all the younger girls to attend a half-hour's lesson twice a week.
The result of all this thoughtful care is abundantly evident in the general air of health and comfort which pervades the whole factory, and in the bright faces which greet us at every turn, as we pass to and fro among the busy workers in this monster hive.
The Dinner Hour, Bournville.