18 OCTOBER 1919, Page 15

RED CROSS WOMEN.

[To THE Berms or THE " Srecraroa."]

SIR.—As one of what may be called the " unoovenanted Red Cross nurses," I should like to endorse most heartily the suggestion in your article that we should all be joined in one permanent body, even if only by paying a subscription, that we may at least feel we do still belong to the Red Cross Society, which otherwise seems doubtful. Many of us semi-trained or untrained, having satisfied the authorities at headquarters, 83 Pall Mall, were sent abroad under their aegis, and with their Anglo-French certificates, only to find when we got to work that we were not " Red Cross nurses " at all. That title was reserved for the professional and paid members of the unit. We were not V.A.D.'s, and were hard put to it to explain our position to our inquiring foreign confreres. In the fourth yhar of the war we were, all unknowingly, handed over to the Comite Britannique de In Croix-Rouge franeaise, and ceased to have any British standing at alL It is not even certain that we are eligible for the little bit of ribbon which shows that we were sent to the front by a British authority. Not that that matters, but we should like to feel that we belonged to something still and would be called upon again if need were to arise.—I am, Sir, &c.,

THREE YEARS' FOREIGN SERVICE.