FLOWERS FOR FRIEDENHEIM.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR21 SIR,—Five years ago, through your kindness and the liberality of your readers, the empty conservatory at Friedenheim, the Home of Peace for the Dying, was filled with flowering shrubs and ferns. The conservatory forms one side of a large ward, and the patients from their beds can see the sun shining on green leaves and bright flowers ; those who are still able to move about, living men among the shadows, can go into the warm glasshouse and see them more clearly. Alas ! plants and flowers will not last for ever, and the stock is almost exhausted, the continual use of disinfectants such as carbolic being peculiarly destructive to plant-life. "We need some- thing to cheer us, lying here day after day," said one poor man with brief and unconscious pathos to me a few days ago; and when I asked a dying woman if she liked flowers, she answered : "Oh yes ! I am from the country and among strangers here, but the flowers are always friends." Once again I would plead earnestly for help in replenishing the half-empty conservatory, the storehouse from which the wards upstairs and downstairs can be garnished with flowers and greenery. Pots of plants or ferns may be sent direct to Miss Davidson, Friedenheim, Upper Avenue Road, N.W., or if money is again entrusted to me I will lay it oat to the best possible advantage; the
nurseryman to whom the orders were given in previous years having acted with liberality when he learned the destination of the plants chosen. It is surely a nobler commemoration of those we have lost to give flo wars to the living, than to lavish them on the coffins of the unseeing dead.—I am, Sir, So., CONSTANCE MILMAN.
61 Cadogan Square, S. W., March 29th.
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