Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 88.djvu/45

Popular Science Monthly

N San Pedro, Calif., a "good road" boulevard is being cut through a hill. The accompanying photograph shows a house that has been left on the very brink of the excavation, and in a precarious position. The steam shovel can be seen in the background scooping deeper. The ground is an old sea-beach made up of loose sand. The owner has threatened to sue the city should the house come to harm.

HE tremendous demand upon the ranks of skilled workmen since the war has resulted in the surprising knowledge that women can supplant men in machine shops.

That the woman mechanic has adequately risen to her opportunity is a fact heartily attested to by scores of European manufacturers. Several of them who have made a systematized study of the woman workman's progress claim that the untried women mechanics have mastered the details of their tasks in a much shorter time than workmen require.

Another interesting point is that the traditional belief of woman's inability to invent is quite unfounded. As an example, in one machine shop where men had been employed on a certain operation for years women took up the work, and in less than a week had devised a plan whereby the time required for the operation was halved.

HE lot of domestic animals in the east is not enviable, particularly when enduring transport from one place to another. Fowls are always sent to market with their legs tied, so that it is impossible for them to move. The photograph shows how live pigs are transported in the Straits Settlement by steamer or barge. They are shipped singly in wicker work baskets. The receptacle is just large enough to take a single pig. In this cramped and uncomfortable position, for the animal's legs are tied, making it nothing more than a living log, it is often shipped long distances. Water is thrown over the animals and occasionally they are allowed to drink, but nothing is given them to eat.