Christmas Appeals
IT is a privilege to be able to help the poor, the sick, and the friendless, especially at Christmas time. Giving is a pleasure as well as a Christian duty. Let us indicate very briefly how and where our kind readers may give, with full assurance that the gifts will be well bestowed. There are, to begin with, the great societies working on a national scale. The Church Army, at 55 Bryanston Street, Marble Arch, W. 1, has added to its many activities a married men's relief depot, to help the saddest victims of unemploy- ment. Dr. Barnardo's Homes, at 18-26 Stepney Causeway,
E. 1, feed, clothe, house, and educate 8,000 children at an average cost of a shilling per head per day—a noble work indeed. The Children's Aid Society, at Victoria House, 117 Victoria Street, S.W. 1, not only _maintains, homes but also undertakes rescue work through its trained staff ; any child in' need has a claim on this fine old society. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children at Victory House, Leicester Square, W.C.2, takes a broad view of its responsibilities and is actively helpful in thousands of cases a year.
The Church of England Homes for Waifs and Strays, whose headquarters are at Old Town Hall, Kennington Road, S.E. 11, shelter 4,630 children in 108 English and Welsh homes with two Canadian branches. The King and Queen are the patrons of this wonderful organization. The Invalid Children's Aid Association, at 117 Piccadilly, W. 1, with the support of eminent surgeons like Sir Alfred Fripp, maintains special country homes for weak and ailing children, and deals with 18,000 cases yearly.
Here in London self-denying workers need encouragement. There is Mr. W. H. Wheatley, at 15 Gray's Inn Road, W.C. 1, who conducts the St. Giles's Christian Mission and Wheatley's Homes and who wants to give Christmas dinners to poor folk. There is Mr. A. G. Groom, at The Crippleage, Sekforde Street, Clerkenwell, E.C. 1, who carries on John Groom's Crippleage' and Flower Girls' Mission, training 300 blind and crippled girls to make flowers and supporting 200 orphan girls in a home at Clacton. There is Mr. F. J. Robinson, at 73 Cheapside, E.C. 3, who is secretary of the Alexandra Orphanage, Haverstock Hill, with 360 little inmates dependent on contributions from the well disposed. Let us heartily commend, too, the Field Lane Institution, ,Vine Street, Clerkenwell Road, E.C. 1, which hopes to be able once again to give- a Christmas dinner to a thousand of the very poorest and the Hoxton Market Christian Mission and Institute, at Iloxton Market, N. 1, where Mr. Burtt and his colleagues strive to make Shoreditch a happier place.
Year in and year out the hospitals want our kindly thoughts. The Cancer Hospital, in Fulham Road, S.W. 1, at this moment specially needs 21 grammes of radium : it costs £12,000 a gramme, but if it were ten times as much it would be cheap at the price since it will save human lives. The London Lock Hospital, Harrow Road, W..9, is faced with a, heavy deficit : yet its splendid work in combating venereal disease and saving children from the taint was never more necessary than it is to-day. The Royal Northern Hospital, Holloway,
N. 7, serving sonic of the poorest parts of London, is to add some private paying wards for middle class patients, the most neglected class of all, if £20,000 is subscribed this month. The Moorfields Eye Hospital, the largest of its kind in the world, is making similar provision for the patients who are neither rich nor poor, if it can raise funds for its extension scheme. To supplement the work of the hospitals there is that admirable institution the Royal Surgical Aid Society of Salisbury Square, Fleet Street, E.e. 4, enabling patients to get the expensive appliances without which they cannot resume ordinary work or effect a cure. The National Institute for the Blind, at 224 Great Portland Street, W. 1, has for its chairman that brave blind soldier, Sir Beachcroft Towse, V.C., who has shown that a blinded man can play a part in the life of the community, and who seeks to help other blind folk to be self-✓ipporting and happy. Let us especially commend the aims of Woman's Mission to Women, of Victoria House, 117 Victoria Street, S.W. 1, which quietly and efficiently helps the sadly large class of unmarried mothers-1,200 of them last year—and enables many.girls to retrieve their characters. Valuable work, again, is done by the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation, at 83 Tavistock Place, Tavistock Square, W.C. 1 ; it is scandalous but true that many beneficed clergymen of the Church of - England are in want, to say nothing of the widows and orphans of clergy whom this society assists.
The London Missionary Society, of Livingstone House, Broadway, Westminster, S.W. 1, is now 133 years old and supports 300 English and 900 native missionaries : to praise it would be impertinent, but it needs funds. The Church Pastoral Aid Society, of Falcon Court, Fleet Street, E.C. 4, has for ninety-two -years helped to provide the salaries of curates and lay workers in poor parishes : never were their services more urgently required. The Friends of Armenia, at 47 Victoria Street, Westminster, S.W. 1, pursue their beneficent mission and relief work among the remnants of that martyred people.
The British Sailors' Society, with headquarters at 680 Commercial Road, E. 14, has branches in all the leading ports the world over, and will celebrate Christmas for the men away from home, while it also maintains an orphanage and a sea training hostel. The Shipwrecked Maiiners Society, at Carlton House, Regent Street, S.W. 1, provides for the widows and orphans of sailors lost at sea, and for those men who are in want. It has- had to meet many urgent calls of late.
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