The best testimony shows that a year is altogether too long for an intelligent well-educated girl of eighteen or more to spend on technical training.[3] Mr James Oliphant, writing inThe School Worldfor July 1913 on the subject of secretarial training for girls, says:
"…. It is to be noted that the curriculum in girls' schools is of a much more reasonable character than that which is commonly provided for boys, and that the more completely it is fitted to supply a good general education, the better it would be adapted to the special needs of those who wish to become clerks or secretaries. It would seem eminently desirable that such aspirants should continue at the secondary school between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, being provided with a specialised course of study … but whenever it is possible it would be well to insist that no subject should be included which is not generally educative in the widest sense. The acquisition of such mechanical arts as stenography and typewriting should be relegated to technical colleges where, according to general testimony, proficiency can be gained by well-educated girls in a period varying from six to nine months. 'Commercial correspondence' is an abomination; a sufficient knowledge of the ordinary forms of letter-writing should be imparted in every course of English composition … while the special jargon of each business or office can be readily acquired by any intelligent girl when it becomes necessary."
There is every variety of price at the various technical training schools all over the country, from a guinea to £100. With regard to the training given in non-technical schools, the capable head of a well-equipped West End typing office writes:
"It is a pity the ordinary schools are taking it up. I know of at least one so-called secondary school which makes a speciality of 'Commercial Training.' The girls who take up the subject are quite the wrong kind, with absolutely no real education,… and are ready to accept anything in the way of salary. The really good schools where the girls remain till they are 18 or 19 give a better training, of course…. But I do not think the schools have any right to undertake a specialised vocational training; it must lower the standard. Every other profession has its special training after a good general education has been acquired."
The best-known societies for protecting the interests of women clerks and secretaries are, the Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries at 12 Buckingham Street, Strand, and the National Union of Clerks at 186-188 Bishopsgate Street. These are the only approved societies under the National Insurance Act.
The Association of Women Clerks and Secretaries has been in existence for eight years, and during the last year has more than trebled its members, the clerks' attitude towards combination having recently changed somewhat, in London at any rate. The Association has a devoted secretary and does excellent work. Its aims are:
(1) To raise the status of women clerks and secretaries, and to encourage a higher standard of practical training.
(2) To secure a just remuneration for all grades.
(3) To render legal aid and give advice to members,and to benefit generally the clerical and secretarialprofession for women.
(4) To maintain a registry for women clerks and secretaries,and to watch for openings for members ofthe Association.
(5) To establish and maintain an Approved Societyunder the National Insurance Act, 1911, for thebenefit of Women Clerks and Secretaries.
The Association is not yet, however, strong enough to form a recognised union able to fix a minimum education qualification for membership. An important conference was held by this Association in May last at the University of London. Every speaker emphasised the need for better and wider education before taking up the profession, and there was unanimity of opinion that no girl should be allowed to start the technical part until she was at least sixteen. A remark of Mrs W.L. Courtney, who was one of the speakers, is well worth quoting: "One of the cleverest women I ever knew, who was an amateur indexer, said to me one day, 'It does not matter in doing this work about being clever; what matters is to have lived.'" There is not much chance then for the school-girl of sixteen.[4]
The National Union of Clerks is conducted with energy and enlightenment. It has increased its membership by nearly 8,000 in the last twelve months, and one of the best reasons it offers women clerks for joining, is that it is the only National Society for Clerks that has always accepted women as members on equal terms as men. There are 1,000 women in a membership of 10,000. Notwithstanding the hard work these two societies are doing, there is nothing like the response there should be from women clerks. It is only the exceptional 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 kindergarten teacher, but she is not at all suited for this work."
The chief grievance of the really efficient woman clerk and secretary is that she has not enough scope. One woman writes:
"If the various firms and professions who employ girls as typists were to give them an insight into the business, whatever it might be, it would add enormously to the enthusiasm of the worker. In America they do this very often. The wonderful Miss Alice Duckin, the lady skyscraper builder, was once a typist. When she entered the firm they allowed her full scope to develop, and she mastered the building trade and is now the chief partner of Messrs Duckin and Lass. There is one firm of lawyers in London who allow their typists to attend the Law Courts, and give them work to do which is usually reserved for men. Only under such conditions can the profession expand."
There is often a chance for a secretary in a newspaper office to develop into a journalist. But there are instances when the private secretary, who begins writing for the paper on which she is employed, is told that she was engaged not as a contributor but as an efficient secretary.
One girl who had been for ten years private secretary to a literary man in London, horrified her relatives, and gave her employer a shock, by suddenly throwing up her much-envied post and entering herself at a hospital for a particularly strenuous kind of nursing. Her salary as secretary was 35s. a week; she had a comfortable room of her own to work in, a good annual holiday, and other blessings. Her chief said "good morning" and "good evening" to her, but she saw no one else, and frequently she had technical German translations in the evenings, for which she got nothing extra. Her chief did not know German, and thought she did the translations as easily as she wrote shorthand. Her whole work was moderately interesting, but the dullness of her life became insupportable. Another private secretary at the end of fifteen years in an excellent post, opened a tea-shop.
An Edinburgh woman sends the following interesting statement:—
"Secretarial work seems to me one of the most congenial for educated women. In Edinburgh the prospects are excellent. The headmasters and mistresses of all the large schools, medical men, dentists, university professors, managing editors of our great printing and publishing houses, several of whom are editing encylopaedias, need a fair number of women secretaries. And there is not a sufficient supply for the law offices of which Edinburgh has such a large number.
"The conditions are in need of some kind of organised supervision, particularly where everything depends on an individual employer. In my first post with a medical specialist, for instance, my time was never my own; my work began at 9 and often did not end at midnight. Sunday work was quite common; there were no Saturday afternoons off, but I had free hours here and there which it was impossible to utilise.
"Another post I had was ideal. I worked for two men, for one of whom I spent the morning in a pathological laboratory. Here I did nothing but research work and writing. In the afternoon I did general correspondence and assistant editing of one of the medical journals. I had free evenings and Saturday afternoons. It is an excellent plan to work for two men, as it gives variety and may often be more remunerative, although for myself I never had more than £100 a year. There is lack of organisation in this profession, and posts are difficult to get by registry or advertisement. I have never found a Women's Employment Bureau of any use whatever. I have got everything by personal recommendation."
A common grievance seems to be the amount of overtime imposed on many clerks, sometimes paid for, but often obligatory whether paid for or not. There is a naive arrangement in the Civil Service Typing Department. It seems that the typists are allowed 9d. or 10d. an hour for overtime up to a limit of fifteen hours a month, but any overtime beyond that is not paid for. In the Minutes of Evidence before the Royal Commission we read:—
"Commissioner. Is any other time beyond that (15 hours a month) ever exacted?
"Superintendent. Yes.
"Commissioner. Are they ever required to work longer than that?
"Superintendent. Yes.
"Commissioner. And are they not paid for it?
"Superintendent. No.
"Commissioner. What is the reason for that?
"Superintendent. The Treasury laid it down in their minute.
"Commissioner. Have you questioned it?
"Superintendent. Yes, we have many times asked the Treasury to allow the department to pay for more, but so far as I know, in no case has it been allowed, and at this present time (May 1912), in the London Telephone Service all shorthand-typists and typists and superintendents are doing a great deal of overtime, but only 15 hours in a month of 4 weeks is paid for. Superintendents are not paid at all for overtime. The only reason, apparently, for the limitation is that the salaries are so close that if shorthand-typists were paid for more overtime than 15 hours they would be earning more than the superintendents."
It seems impossible to tell as yet how the working of the National Insurance Act will affect women clerks. The secretary of the Information Bureau of the Woman's Institute says that, as far as she knows, good offices continue to pay their clerks their salaries in cases of illness, only making a deduction of the 7s. 6d. paid as insurance money.
To sum up, there is urgent need for better organisation among clerks and secretaries. They should be graded in some way, so that the efficient who are out of work may easily be brought in touch with employers. The societies reach only a small proportion of the workers, many of whom do not even know of their existence. It must be remembered that a difficulty in the way of men and women clerks combining, is that women of good education, sometimes in possession of degrees, find themselves in competition with men of an inferior social class. A large proportion of the best secretaries are the daughters of professional men. The average woman clerk is invariably a person of better education and manners than the male clerk at the same salary.
In the next place, better sanitation and better working conditions must be secured. Only last year, a firm employing hundreds of men and a dozen women, had no separate lavatory for the women. It is to the interest of the employer of women clerks to look after their health and to provide rest rooms. Anti-feminists are positive as to women's "inferior physique," but their practice as employers is too often inconsistent with their opinions.
Most important of all, women clerks and secretaries want more scope. After ten years of clerking and secretarying they find that they are up against a dead wall. There is no prospect of advancement, and no call on their initiative. In private secretarial work this is not always the fault of the employer; it is often inherent in the nature of the work. Unless the secretary has, say, literary or journalistic ability and develops in that way, she is worth little more to her chief, if he is a literary man, after fifteen years than she was at the end of ten. There may be progress from a less desirable to a more desirable post, but there can be no advancement in the work itself. As a training, however, a private post is incomparable. With the woman who works for a commercial firm, it is a different matter. Women of the best type who do this work, have a right to complain when they are without chance of promotion. They feel that they should be given the same opportunity of rising in the business, whatever it may be, as is open to any intelligent office boy. The reply of the employer is, that while the office boy, if promoted and given increasing pay, may be expected to stay with the firm for a lifetime, there is not the same certainty of continuity of service from women clerks, who may at any time leave to get married. There are cases, however, where women have stayed on after marriage when it has been made worth their while. One woman who entered a firm as a young girl, continued with the firm after marriage, and is now, as a widow, working for the same employers. There is no reason why such cases should be exceptional.
The calling, the conditions of which we have been considering, suffers from its accessibility to the half trained and undisciplined of various social grades. When, however, the righteous complaint of the employer against the incompetent and scatter-brained has been heard, the fact remains that among women clerks and secretaries there is an exceptionally large proportion who give, for a moderate return and limited prospects of advancement, conscientious, loyal, and skilful service.
[Footnote 1: See Appendix II., p. 317.]
[Footnote 2: Satisfactory secretarial training may be obtained in London from reliable teachers for a fee of 25 guineas for a year's course. It is, however, necessary to make searching enquiries before arranging to enter any school, as some of these neither give a sound training, nor obtain posts for their pupils as their advertisements promise. [EDITOR.]]
[Footnote 3: First rate secretarial preparation includes more than merely technical instruction. It gives a sound business training as well, and, in addition, insists on one or more foreign languages. A girl who hopes to become something more than a shorthand-typist ought not to scamp her professional training: this should, of course, follow her school-course—i.e., not begin until she is seventeen or eighteen. Graduates, who have specialised in foreign languages, may also advantageously prepare for the better secretarial posts. [EDITOR.]]
[Footnote 4: Apart from monetary prospects altogether, no girl should be allowed to enter the profession until she is old enough and wise enough to protect herself, should need arise, from the undesirable employer, who may insult her with unwelcome attentions. The possibility of such annoyance is an additional reason for all clerks to join a Trade Union, which helps individuals to insist on proper conditions of work. [EDITOR.]]
I do not know that the first actress who ever faced the public told her friends thattheprofession was not all paint and glitter, because being a pioneer, and so treading on the corns of custom, she was held as an unwomanly creature, and had unpleasant things thrown at her, as well as words. So her impressions are not recorded. But when women had settled down into the work, and were allowed to represent themselves in the theatre (a privilege not as yet accorded to them elsewhere), they announced practically and forcibly that all that glittered was not gold, and that a successful, much-loved heroine did not invariably tread the rosy path without finding the proverbial thorns.
The word "hardship" often repeated by successful artists, is accepted by the public as a truism, which affects their attitude towards the stage as a career about as much as the statement that the world is round, when in their eyes it appears disappointingly flat. Yet the word "hardship" has a meaning which most hurts those who have most capacity for pain, and who are specially sensitive to humiliations, disappointments, and discomforts—artists.
But there are compensations, urges the outsider: good pay, congenial work, and fame. If there are hardships what a glittering prize compensates for the suffering!
Let us at once grant the compensations which the few achieve. The few make world-wide reputations, large salaries, and many devoted friends: their life is full of interesting and successful work. But the average individual is in the great majority, and the many spend all and obtain nothing, trying to obtain a bargain which is no bargain: a bargain in which there is something to sell and no one to buy—even our average actress has something to sell, something worth buying—composed of talent, ambition, long study, and application. There are, of course, many more successful women in the theatre than there used to be, owing to the tremendous opening up of this means of livelihood; but though the successful are more abundant, there is, alas! no doubt a growing number of unsuccessful workers in this very much over-crowded market. In fact, it is becoming a profession in which it is only possible to survive if the worker has some private means, or a supplementary trade.
I believe that this question of a supplementary trade requires consideration, and am, myself, at present working on the subject, in the hope that a scheme may be evolved to ensure those willing to work an opportunity of gaining a livelihood during the long "resting" periods. This waiting for work is almost universally the largest part of an actress's life; and any satisfaction in the magnitude of the wages which may be obtained must always be balanced by the knowledge that an enormous number of weeks must be taken into consideration, when work is quite unattainable.
Here is one of the gravest disabilities of the profession. Only continuous work can develop the powers of any artist, and this is particularly true of the art of the theatre. Under the present conditions an artist is, with an entire want of reason, raised to a pinnacle of importance when playing a good part in a successful play; but she may with equal suddenness be dashed into a gulf of failure and non-productiveness, also without reason.
There have been many artists, who at the end of a brilliant run of a successful play, to the success of which they have largely contributed, have found themselves forgotten by the powers that be, and have discovered with bitter disappointment that a successful run may result in being left utterly ignored, without a single offer of work.
The Christmas pantomime and the summer season cut down the actor's year to forty weeks. From information which I was able to obtain from the Actor's Association, the average yearly income of an actor is £70. From this, £37 may be deducted for travelling and other expenses. For though the actual railway fare is usually paid, no allowance is made for conveyance of luggage from station to lodgings, and the constant change of quarters naturally makes the weekly expenditure on a higher scale. On these figures the average weekly earnings of an actor would be 12s. 6d., or 1s. 9d. per day.
This is the average income of an actor when working, but under present conditions, the average day for an average actress is one in which she looks for work. So let us take the average day of the average actress, and see how she spends it.
After leaving her tiny, grubby back room in Bloomsbury (time and fares prohibit a bigger, better room in the suburbs), where she has cleaned her own shoes, ironed her blouse and sewn in frilling before starting, she walks down to an agent. The waiting-room there has a couple of forms, which are already filled, and groups of girls have been standing for some time. They have all had insufficient breakfasts, badly served and ill-cooked; they all wear cheap and uncomfortable shoes, too thin for wet pavements; they are all obliged to put on a desperately photographic pose and expression, in case the agent's eyes light on them. One or two, better dressed and more self-possessed, secure interviews and pass out by another door. No information about the part is to be procured, they are all there "on the chance." At half past one the agent comes out for lunch, saying, as he passes through the room, "No use waiting, ladies; no one else wanted to-day." Our average friend has stayed for three hours, knowing no one to speak to, and leaves no nearer her goal for her morning's congenial work. She lunches on sandwiches and tea, re-arranges her hat and veil, and starts out with fresh hope to use her one letter of introduction to the manager of a West End theatre.
She hands it to a door-keeper, who may possibly be considerate, but cannot offer her a chair. There is no waiting-room; she waits in a draughty, tiny passage, stage hands constantly squeezing by her. There is a rehearsal; she must wait, or come back in an hour's time. She walks round and looks into the shops in Leicester Square, and returns thoroughly fatigued and a little pale, at four o'clock. She is shown into an office, and by virtue of her letter of introduction is asked to sit down. A few questions are put to her about her past work: she does not know what part the manager has in mind, and puts forward inept qualifications. In two or three minutes the important man has formed his opinion of her face, carriage, expression, and has decided if he will remember her or not. Her name being average, the odds are that he will not; but he murmurs, "If anything turns up, I will let you know," and her big chance is over. There is nothing approaching an audition, such as a singer gets. It is the only opportunity afforded her, this poor and hopeless method of proving her capacity as an actress. It leaves her poorer for the day's outlay in food. She walks back to the little room, her foothold in London—the great art market.
This is a "congenial" day's work, which may be repeated for weeks, and it occurs on an average in every three months. The adventure of it stales very quickly.
Let there be no mistake in the mind of the reader. This is not only the experience of a would-be actress, a well-trained, medal-laden aspirant from one of the good dramatic schools, but is one of the bitter and frequent experiences of the thoroughly capable, trained, and occasionally well-salaried actress, who has failed to arrive, during her eighteen to twenty years of experience, at the much coveted, and supposedly safe position at the top of the theatrical ladder.
Suppose our average actress is lucky, and her letter of introduction gains her a small part in the London production. Into her three lines she tries to crowd all she can of what she has learned from teachers and experience. It is her opportunity. She has stepped forward amongst those fortunate ones whose names are mentioned in the programme. She starts for rehearsal happily enough from the little room in Bloomsbury, passes the door-keeper without question, and takes up her stand in the wings. There she stays three hours. She has companionship in hushed whispers, and the right to exist. At two o'clock her act has not yet been reached, and the artists are allowed to leave the theatre for half an hour to get lunch. As she is not paid for rehearsals, she cannot afford more than sixpence for a meal; so her repast is necessarily a light one. At five, rehearsal is dismissed, and she has gone through her part twice. Five minutes would cover her actual acting for the day; and having stood about for nearly six hours she walks back home to her room.
As the play nears production, the rehearsal hours lengthen, and the lunch times shorten. Her own hoard of savings offer her less and less to spend on food, and when finally the play is produced—let us face the worst—it not infrequently occurs that the run of the piece may end in three weeks. She has rehearsed for four weeks, has been glad to accept £2 for her tiny part, and out of that short run, which represents £6, she must save enough to tide her over the next few weeks, or perhaps months, until she gets her next engagement, more unpaid rehearsals, and perhaps another short run. There is always wearing anxiety, and the unpleasing, thankless, humiliating searching for work, under the most distasteful conditions possible.
There is now an effort being made by a few of the London managers to pay a percentage on salaries for rehearsing. The movement, I think, is partially due to the Insurance Act, which, of course, touches all the low paid labour in the theatre. This effort, though obviously of importance, can hardly as yet be considered as quite satisfactory. The payments for five weeks' rehearsals are 6s. on the £1, 1s. salaries, which include dancers, walkers-on, etc.: and 12s. 6d. a week on salaries of £3. In each case, of course, the threepence insurance has to be deducted, and it must be quite clear that no woman can live on 5s. 9d., much less make a good appearance, unless she has other means of support.
She may get an engagement to tour for a limited number of weeks. If so, she gazes in despair at her small wardrobe, trying to puzzle out three costumes to be used in the play, for actresses going on tour have usually to provide their own dresses.
A friend of mine played the leading part on the tour of a West End production. She had to find all her own dresses, hats, shoes, stockings, etc., and her salary was £3, 10s. a week. In a "boiled-down" version she played twice nightly for £5 a week, and found four dresses, two hats, an evening cloak, besides the shoes, stockings, gloves, etc., incidental to a well dressed part. Another soubrette on a salary of £2, 5s. paid her fare both on joining and leaving the company, and was obliged to provide two dresses, one evening dress and cloak, shoes, stockings, etc.
The average salaries in melodrama are £4 a week, out of which must be provided many dresses. The "heavy lead" or "adventuress" type, generally magnificently attired, gets about £3 a week. In London, of course, in the West End productions, dresses are provided, but the engagement is not for a definite period as it would be on a tour, and a curious difficulty arises through this arrangement, since the actress who has once been beautifully dressed has a natural and very comprehensible predilection thenceforward to continue to be so delightfully gowned. Her own opinion as to what a dress should cost almost invariably, after a London engagement, ceases to be on a level with what her yearly income should permit. Clothes assume a horrible importance not known in other trades, since her appearance may mean her livelihood as a worker; for do we not know of engagements which have been made when the angle of a hat has exactly coincided with the mood of the manager who is engaging his company?
So our little average actress, starting off on tour, patches and manoeuvres to have a satisfactory appearance, and is painfully self-conscious of deficiencies when the eyes of the manager, or the more well-to-do sharers of the dressing-room, appear to enquire too closely into details. One of my first successes was a triumphant one for my sister; since an evening blouse, ingeniously concocted from a table-centre, received some long notices in the Press.
Theatrical lodgings, when one's salary is 25s. a week, are not always the most pleasing in the town. Rheumatic fever and other unpleasant illnesses have been contracted from damp beds, when the landlady, in her desire to live up to the degree of cleanliness expected of her, returns the sheets too quickly to the so-lately vacated bed; because, with one company leaving in the morning, and another arriving at tea-time, there are not many hours to clean out a room, and wash and iron the only pair.
The lodgings are usually extremely bad and dirty, and generally in the least attractive and most unsavoury quarters of the town. The food is generally unappetising and cooked with very little intelligence. There have been many cases of women finding themselves in disreputable houses; and even recommended lodgings have been found empty on arrival, the police having raided them. I feel very strongly that the only comfortable and dignified way to meet this difficulty is to have a regular chain of clubs, on the principle of the Three Arts Club.
Recently, in the correspondence of a leading "Daily," I read a letter in which a man wrote that actresses on tour were able to perfect themselves as wives and housekeepers. This throws a curious side-light on the ignorance of people in general with regard to the theatre. Actresses may, and do, become admirable workers, wives, and housekeepers; but this is rather from the hardships of their lives than from any possibility of developing a natural aptitude for housekeeping whilst travelling week after week from town to town, and living in rooms where the cleaning and cooking are done by the landlady. As all domestic work is undertaken by the people who let the rooms, the days go slowly, and there is absolutely nothing of interest to do. If our average actress is with a successful play, her engagement may be a long one; and she lives through the discomforts, buoyed up by the hope of further opportunities, and a swelling account at the Post Office.
The happiest of all existences, for an actress, despite hard work and much study, is in a repertory theatre. The opportunities are great; ambition is not thwarted at every step; the day is filled with hard study, but the nights result in greater or smaller achievement. Everybody with whom she comes in contact is working as hard and earnestly as she is. Life invigorating, progressive, uplifting, is hers. To-night she is conscious she was not quite her best, but next week, when the play is done again, she will work to make that point real, she will laugh more naturally, cry more movingly, progress a little further on the way to realise her dream of perfect expression, free from worry and anxiety, free to work.
Having achieved a certain amount of experience on tour and in London, and being more or less proficient in her profession, does not, however, ensure an increase in the actor's value. A domestic servant receives a character, which is, if satisfactory, a sure means of employment; a teacher, inspector, etc., has a certificate which is a pronouncement of efficiency; but however great the achievement of the theatre there is no lasting sign of your work, and the want of definite aim is mentally demoralising. I have heard men say, and I think not unjustly, that as many of these women are practically "on the rocks," they will do anything for money; and this brings one to a question which looms largely when considering unskilled trades. The unskilled, pleasure-loving, short-sighted but ambitious girl, is apt to lose her sense of values, and to be an easy and sometimes very willing victim. If she be attractive, the eye of a powerful person may alight upon her, and several shades of temptations are placed before her. Not only money, and the advantages which an outward show of prosperity may bring with it; not only amusements and luxuries; but a much more dangerous and difficult temptation, which is not possible in other trades, is placed before the worker—the offer of greater opportunities in her work, the opportunities which an "understudy" may bring in its train; the opportunity of a small part; the gratification of ambition. There is no more immorality than in other trades, but there is an amount of humiliating and degrading philandering, a mauling sensuality which is more degrading than any violent abduction. To be immoral a certain amount of courage is required; but the curse of modern theatrical conditions is this corrupt debauchery. Many girls have come to me explaining their difficulties, and many in asking my advice ended up with the persistent cry of the modern woman, "I do so want to get on!" This is a transitional stage in the world, as well as in the theatre. When women are more intelligent and independent, there will not be the same amount of selling themselves for the necessities of existence. They will be able to secure the necessities, and a large number of the luxuries, for themselves—one of the reasons, doubtless, why the reactionaries cry out so loudly against the woman's movement.
People love power over others; they love to control their destinies; and there is a very large number of men who drift towards the theatre, and like to consider the poor little butterflies as creatures of a different species from their wives and daughters—a species provided by a material Providence, who supplies their other appetites. The poor little butterflies are glad, for a short time, to put up with stupidity and egoism for the sake of a temporary relief from sordid discomfort and gloom. Of course, I am not speaking of the women who, without economic pressure, lead an illicit life. There are a few of these women who are more than able to protect themselves, and occasionally avenge their sisters.
Of course, there are also theatres which are obviously dependent for their great success upon this "oldest profession in the world": theatres where a fairly good salary is offered with the suggestion that it is as well to sup at some well-known restaurant, at least three times a week; to drive to the theatre in a motor car, and to be dressed by one of the famous dressmakers, whose names are given with the salary. There are theatres where an eye is kept on the number of stalls which are filled by the employed. But on the tours of these successes, the managers are often very strict in their regulations, and do everything to prevent those employed from supplementing their incomes in this manner.
There are, unfortunately, too many women who still believe in dependence, so the supply is quite as great as the demand. To the real artist who is deeply centred in her work, this particular evil is of practically little importance. A great belief in her own powers enables her to push aside opportunities which are not genuine. Men are also human, and if met frankly and straightforwardly in work, or for that matter, out of it, are as capable of honest, helpful good fellowship as any woman. In fact, the work of the theatre, which employs men and women, on more or less equal terms, is a splendid place to find out that humanity is not limited to sexual problems, and that the spirit of work removes these limitations, and gives place to a healthy, invigorating atmosphere ofcamaraderie. It is quite a false idea that a move in the wrong direction is in any way necessary to success.
Something must be said with regard to the sanitation and ventilation of the theatre. Though there has been latterly a great effort to improve the dressing-rooms in the new buildings, there is still a great deal to be remedied. Here is a description of a dressing-room used by a young artist in a modern West End theatre.
"We were seven in a room which just held seven small toilet tables on a shelf running round the wall, and a narrow walking space from the door to the window in between. This dressing-room was two floors below the level of the street, and the one window opened on a passage covered with thick glass, so that there was no direct air channel. Next door was a man's urinal used by about forty men—actors, stage hands, and scene shifters. A pipe from this place came through the dressing-room; the smell sometimes, even in the winter, was overpowering; and we ourselves bought Sanitas and kept sprinkling it on the floor of the room and the passage. Added to this was the fact that the stairs from the stage led straight down facing the entrance of this men's urinal, and not infrequently the door would be open and shut as we came down, and it was altogether very objectionable."
The report of a young artist who toured for some time with a comedy sketch in the music halls shows equally bad conditions. This sketch was sent out by a first rate London management, and the halls visited were on the first-class tours. She told me that in one of the largest towns in England the Music Hall had only one ladies' lavatory, which was on the stage exactly behind the back-drop. A horse was necessary for an Indian sketch on the same bill in which the comedy sketch was played, and the recess by the lavatory was found to be the only safe place to stable the horse. The door of the ladies' lavatory was therefore nailed up for the week. Should anyone wish, she could, on explaining to the ushers in the front of the house, receive a pass of admission to the ladies' cloakroom, but to reach the front of the house meant a walk of four minutes round a complete block, and, even if it had not been winter time, it is almost impossible for any actress, when once dressed for her part, to go into the street without attracting a great deal of notice, and also very likely entirely spoiling her appearance, as theatrical "make-up" is only meant for the dry atmosphere of the theatre.
On this same tour, in a famous south coast resort, this lady had to dress in an underground dressing-room with twelve others, and the only lavatory for women's use was opposite the stage-door box, where all letters were called for, and the stage hands lounged about the whole evening. In the most important town on this tour the dressing-room in which she was directed to dress had, for its sole ventilation, the door by which one entered, exactly facing the one general lavatory. The aperture, high up in the wall, opened into another room where, during this week, fifty cocks and hens, used in an animal turn, were kept. It would be quite impossible to describe the sickening smell which all this meant. The only thoroughly clean, sanitary hall which she visited, was in Scotland.
In almost all the theatres, even where the conditions are considered above criticism, the lavatories reserved for the ladies are, by a curious arrangement, generally on the floor where most of the actors dress. They are almost invariably difficult to use, for as the dressing-rooms are usually allotted by men, there is little consideration of women's comfort in this matter. It is a curious side-light on the intelligence of men that they almost universally seem to think that women, by a special Providence, are exempt from these natural laws; and almost all women are still too Early Victorian to insist upon some change. Many of the old theatres in London and the provinces suffer from want of proper ventilation; and many of them are appallingly, incredibly dirty. In the provinces dressing-rooms are sometimes dripping with damp; and it is not an uncommon experience to share the room with mice and other vermin.
It is only possible for me to touch very lightly on employment by the cinematograph firms; but from the enquiries I have made, the usual payment seems to be roughly from 5s. to 7s. 6d. a day, the workers finding their own clothes: 10s. 6d. if the workers can ride and swim: 3s. a day for walking on, when light meals are provided. There is a form of application to be filled in, which demands the following particulars:—
Height.Bust measurement.Waist measurement.Skirt length.Age.Line of work.Remarks.Ride horseback. Cycle. Swim.
The pictures take about ten days to prepare, and as a supplementary trade, undoubtedly this work is of value to the actress.
An evil which attacks the theatre of the present day is the horrible mantle of respectability which has settled on the profession. Respectability in Art is a blight which undermines, and the moment any worker or profession of workers is accepted on equal terms by the non-workers of the community, misery invariably ensues. It is impossible for a non-worker to comprehend the life of a worker, or to make any margin for the work, which, if we judge by the example of their own lives, they evidently despise. The restrictions which all honest work brings, along with its compensations, are annoying to ornamental parasites; and the contempt for restrictions is apt subtly to undermine the mind of the worker.
There is no doubt that for the average actress, when such an enormous number of people are rushing into the theatrical profession, there is little security. The life of a successful actress is undoubtedly one of the very best, so far, open to women. It is not a fact that the best and greatest actresses are always the successful ones: but it is a truth that all the successful ones have some natural qualifications which have enabled them to gain that position.
Then what is the matter with the theatre? and why has it become such a miserable life for the average worker? It is an unskilled trade, and the people who have control of the trade have a contempt for the average worker. They believe they can teach in a few weeks, what they have not, in years, succeeded in mastering themselves. The unfortunate worker is taught like a parrot, used for a short time, and then thrown on the scrap-heap of the unfit for the theatre, when the theatre has unfitted them for more honourable work.
The employer is at the present moment a man, and a man will offer a salary of 30s. a week to a woman, because she will take 30s.: but he will not offer that sum to an actor. There is a subtle assumption that because women will take less, they are not entirely dependent on their work; and a manager will sometimes offer a large salary to a woman who drives up in a motor car, magnificently dressed, most obviously not dependent on her earnings; whilst the accomplished actress, without these powerful assets, and obviously dependent on her work, is paid practically a third of that salary.
Let us sincerely hope that this transitional stage from the days when each town had its own theatre, and engagements were always for the season, to the waste and despair of the present conditions of the mass of the workers in the theatre of this country, may give place to some system which will select the fit from the unfit, and give them a permanent engagement with a proper clause of notice on either side, such as that to which workers in other trades are entitled. More care in selection; more belief that an actress, if she be of any use, can represent a diversity of types; a shutting of the doors on those who are obviously unfitted, however cheap their labour may be, would be salvation to the women who are trying to earn their bread in the theatre. For it is time we ceased to grovel before this misused word "Art," which covers the wasteful cruelty the present conditions in the theatre permit.
The Group was formed by some women members of the Fabian Society in 1908, chiefly with the object of studying the problem of women's economic independence in relation to socialism. The work was mapped out on the following lines, to which the Group has adhered:—
Part I.—Differences in Ability for Productive Work Involved in Difference of Sex Function.
Division 1.—Natural disabilities of women when not actively engaged in childbearing.
Division 2.—Natural disabilities of women when actively so engaged.
Part II.—Women's Economic Independence in Relation to Social Conditions.
Division 1.—Women as productive workers and as consumers in the past.
Division 2.—Women as productive workers and as consumers in the present.
Part III.—Practical Steps towards such Modification of Social Conditions as will enable Women:
(a) Freely to use and develop their physical and mental capacities in productive work, while remaining free and fully able to exercise their special function of childbearing.
(b) Each personally to receive her individual share of the social wealth.
Two Summaries of the lectures and discussions arising out of Part I. were issued for private circulation in 1910. Copies, 1d. each, can now be procured through the Fabian Office, 3 Clement's Inn, W.C.
Fifteen papers of the Historical Series, Part II., Division I, have already been given, and the subjects considered in them have nearly covered the field of material at present available for the rough preliminary enquiry, in which the Group has led the way. When the series is finished, it is hoped to shape the material into essay form for publication.
The present volume is the outcome of lectures and discussions arising out of Part II., Division 2. It is hoped that it may prove to be the first of a Series dealing with this part of the investigations undertaken by the Women's Group.
Total. Unmarried. Married. Widowed.
I. Teachers 187,283 171,480 11,798 4,005
II. Physicians, Surgeons 477 382 76 19and Registered Practitioners
III. Midwives, Sick Nurses, 83,662 55,288 11,867 16,507Invalid Attendants
IV. Poor Law, Municipal, 19,437 14,439 2,514 2,484Parish, etc., Officers
V. National Government 31,538 25,843 3,410 2,285Employeés
VI. Commercial or Business 117,057 114,429 1,733 895Clerks
VII. Actresses 9,171 5,259 3,540 372
In a volume which may be issued by the Census Office in February, some sub-divisions of the above headings will be made. Thus (1) teachers employed by Local Authorities will be separated from those in other schools; (2) the number of dentists (not included above) will be given; (3) the number of midwives will be shown separately; (4) Poor Law will be distinguished from other Local Government Service; (5) Post Office Servants will be distinguished from other Civil Servants; (6) clerks will, as far as possible, be classified according to the industry with which they are connected; (7) actresses in music-halls will, as far as possible, be distinguished from those in theatres.
[Footnote 1: In connection with these returns of 1911, it must be remembered that a large number of women workers resisted the census in that year as a protest against their exclusion from citizenship. The above figures are, therefore, though official, unavoidably an understatement.]