Show di W 1 OU have read many times if you will recall that a large share of the work of admin isterling uncle sam s business at washington Is in the hands of women to be sure none i f I 1 the most conspicuous executive positions such as those of the arz president and the heads of the various departments are yet held by members of the fair sex although they may be some day it if this suffrage rage wave continues to roll forward all the same many of the most responsible subordinate positions are in the hands bands of women married women single women and widows and about halt half of the thousands upon thousands of federal employed emp loyes who are engaged in clerical work are women momen many of uncle sam s feminine assistants per form tasks that are not one whit different from those which fall to the lot of their r sisters who can earn their own livelihood in the modern busl bust ness world for instance they operate typewrite type writ era ers or manage telephone switchboards or do any V T absy azes aso 32 1 ay other one of a dozen tasks common to every corn com in this busy age on the other band hand however uncle sam has on his payroll a n imber of women who have odd duties some of the tasks indeed are so novel that uncle sam had to train his own workers for their performance and there are scattered here and there in the ranks of the army of feminine workers women experts or specialists who have absolutely unique vocations mistresses of their crafts who have no rivals anywhere in the world orld for instance there Is a woman in the employ of the department of state who stands pre emi nent as a manuscript doctor or manuscript surgeon never heard hoard of such a thin thing did youa well it Is a very important line of work ork for all that that there is not a wide market tor for her services and it is adorm a form of endeavor that is almost inval enval bable to uncle sam who likes to preserve intact all the historical manuscripts and documents which have had a bearing upon the history of our nation before the government had recourse to the services of this restorer many of the most valuable documents treaties presidential proclamations etc were fast going to ruin age handling and frequent that broke the paper had indeed already placed havoc with many a precious relic after this ingenious worn wom an took hold she accomplished wonders in mend ing the ravages of time she patched and pasted and smoothed out wrinkles and the result is that many of these treasured mementoes are to all appearances literally as good as new A very interesting line of work in which uncle sam has recruited a corps of especially adept women workers is fine book binding in erdl nary practice most bookbinding now adiTa Is done by machinery that Is the way it is done at the government printing office where there is maintained one of the biggest bookbinding plants in the country however the government has some books that it desires to have bound with the costliest materials and with greater care than can be bestowed upon the machine made product this hand handwork vork is performed for the most part by women and some of the the e morocco bound volumes which they have turned out in recent years would arouse all sorts of enthusiasm were they to be exhibited at any of those expo sitione of women s handicraft which are held from time to time the whole process of making uncle sam a pa per money and postage r stamps Is full of odd tasks and many of them are performed by worn wom en the women omen hundreds of them assist in printing the precious product and they have an ideal field in which to develop their superior deftness of fingering in the counting and recount ing of the money in the making the newly printed currency Is counted no less than halt half a hundred times ere uncle sam sends it out to the people and women do most of this enumeration they also examine the sheets of money and stamps for the tiny defects of printing and this requires a keenness of vision almost unbelievable in its accuracy when the soiled currency tattered and torn is sent back to uncle sam as for further usefulness it is other women nomen at the treasury department who have to count it and check up the returns connected with this office the re demotion dempt demp lon tion division are a few women whose work Is perhaps the most miraculous of all the won mon der tasks performed by the women at washing ton their forte Is to identify the denomination of partially destroyed bills which no ordinary individual would regard as any anything more than waste paper currency that has been chewed by dogs notes that have been torn into bits and even charred paper money that has been all but consumed by the flames Is taken in hand by these thes e wizards and in ninety nine cases 0 it of a hun dred they manage to ascertain the denomination of A the damaged bit of pulp or paper and uncle sam reimburses the unfortunate owner in line with ath the detective work of these money sleuths Is the intuition you cannot canno aall 11 it any 0 1 J q J ore oz V all S rz lap Q 0 7 vy it L ar zarda moiree 4 91 waste baskets is to guard against f the loss of money or valuable papers that might ight inadvertently slip into the baskets and that this Is no idle precaution either Is eloquently 7 proven by cne the fact that not so very cap long ago one of these women reco v ered 10 from a waste basket one thing less of the so called blind re readers aderi of the united states postoffice Post office department these women are made the wardens of the waifs aias of the malls mails the letters that no postmaster or letter carrier can deliver because try as they may they cannot male make out the name or address of the persons for whom they are intended sometimes the dl Is simple being merely caused by M misspelling but more often the puzzling letter originates with some person whose education is deficient or has been gent sent by a resident of a for eign country who could not get through his head our american system of towns and counties and states and who mixes things up so that no erdl nary individual could make head or tall tail out of the hodgepodge hodge podge the blind readers take these puzzles and by a magic which comes from experience and which they cannot themselves ex plain they decipher the writing and set the letter on its way to the proper destination uncle sam has t a number of very clever women artists on his roster and though vou may never have heard the names of any of them you have most of you seen and admired the work they do for one thing chev paint those splendidly bealls tic pictures of fruit and birds and insects etc are reproduced in color in the publications of the department of agriculture some of these women are experts in the coloring of magic lan ian tern slides and you know uncle sam has come to use lantern slides and moving pictures very extensively in order to educate the people re garding the work he Is doing in their behalf finally these women have shown their skill in coloring the huge transparencies of american scenery which uncle sam has exhibited at every one of the big expositions held in this country in some years past entitled to recognition along with these artists Is uncle sam s woman sculptor mrs otto helde heide mann is a portrait sculptor of no mean ability as Is amply attested by her recently completed bust of clara barton the founder of the red cross society however her work for uncle sam is confined to the odd occupation of making models of bugs these reproductions of insects are many times as large as the insects themselves a corn com mon house fly being represented as much larger than a man a head and there is consequently op port unity for the utmost accuracy of detail and coloring the counterfeit bugs of giant size are made from wire thread wax celluloid papier mache rubber and a special kind of gauze and despite the frail appearance of the figures it has been found that they are really very stanch and will well withstand the shocks incident to ship ment from place to place among other odd jobs in the government ice held by women are those of two waste has ket examiners at the treasury department these women are paid a year each just to pull over the scraps of paper red tape and other discarded articles that find their way into the waste baskets in the biggest of financial eions As uncle sam receives 1600 1 a year for the waste paper that they sort over he can well afford to pay them for their odd sorting of refuse but there Is another and better reason and arid one that makes it an economy instead of an gance the real object of this supervision of the jamail jAA Ail evening A woman with a decidedly odd job Is mrs leroy who Is employed in the land office and who received 1200 1 a year for simply signing sighing the name of william II 11 taft all day I 1 long g e every e working day in the week the law r requires e 0 h hr e I 1 that h the sigur signature ture of the president shall appear on avery every 1 if id patent of course the chief magis cannot sign all these papers in person it if he did be he would not have time for anything else so the lady at the land office acts as his proxy and gets a tidy salary for th the monotonous work the highest salaried woman in the federal ice fee or probably in the service s er vice of any republic on earth is mrs margaret V kelly who Is ex aciner of abig united states mints and who re ceides the fancy salary of 3 a year she deserves it however because she has spent many years in the mint bureau and probably knows knova more about the administration of uncle sam s coin factories than any other living person |