THE FRENCH WOUNDED.
[To mu EDITOR or mm .Ersorerom"] SIR,—May we plead in your columns for the work of the French Wounded Emergency Fond, which provides help for many of the military hospitals in France P We are sometimes confronted with the view that France should not require help in providing for her wounded. Surely those who think this have forgotten that England and France are fighting in a common cause, so that the wounded of either country may justly be termed our wounded, and that while we hold a line of about thirty miles in France, our allies are responsible for five hundred and forty-three miles. The number of their wounded must therefore be enormously greater than that of our own. To add to the difficulties, as some of the most prosperous provinces in France are in the hands of the enemy, flannel and wool for knitting socks are almost unprocurable_ The working population, except those engaged in the manu- facture of war munitions, is under arms, and owing to the fact that the French invest their money principally in their own country, the richer classes cannot assist their poor neigh- bours as much as they would like to do, and are often in great straits themselves. Every available building in most of the pro- vincial towns has been converted into a lapital temporairs. Rich and poor do their best to augment the necessarily insufficient allowances, but the supply of drugs, surgical instruments, and comforts is often terribly inadequate for the needs of the wounded.
The French Wounded Emergency Fund is co-opted with the Special War Committee of Ladies of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, and approved and recognized by the British Red Cross Society. Several times weekly bales containing clothing. drugs, surgical instruments, leave its headquarters, at 34 Lowndes Square, for ports in France, where they are met by motors and conveyed to the hospitals for which they are destined, a bale being on the average three days on its journey. These bales are sent in response to appeals from the added*, chefs at different hospitals, these hospitals having been first visited by members of the Executive Committee who travel in France for the purpose, while on their arrival at 34 Lowndes Square the appeals are carefully examined by an expert, who makes sure that the demands contained in them are reason- able. Nearly all the work done by the Society is voluntary
the visitors paying their own travelling expenses, and the motors being provided by friends. During last week 147 bales, containing 20,770 garments, five cases of surgical instruments, three parcels of crutches, in addition to drugs of all descriptions, were despatched to France. The want is urgent, and monetary help is greatly needed, as well as blankets, pants, shirts, slippers, socks, vests, sheets, pillow-cases (tweuty-eight inches square), absorbent wool, gauze, oil silk, waterproof sheeting, air cushions, and bandages (by the thousand).
All oommunications and gifts of clothing should be sent to the Hon. Secretary, Miss Evelyn Wyld, addressed to the headquarters at 34 Low-odes Square. Cheques should be sent to the Hon. Treasurer, Hon. Cyril Russell, at the same address. The Fund's bankers are the National Provincial Bank, 208 Piccadilly, and the Hon. Auditor is Mr. J. S. Lee.—We are, Sir, &a, DOREEN LINLITHGOW. ELEANOR CECIL. CONSTANCE CRAWFORD. E. RUSSELL OP BILLOWEN. E. MARION BRYCE.
French Wounded Emergency Fund,
Set Lounides Square, S.W.
[So good a canoe needs no words of commendation from us. If it did, they would be given at once. Our alliance with France and Russia is no frigid business compact, but a union of hearts and hands. Their troubles are ours, and if we help them we but help our own.—ED. Spectator.]
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