SOUTH CHINA FLOOD RELIEF
The following report of the relief work in Southern China has been received by the Red Cross:
American Consular Service,
Canton, China, December 14, 1908.
CHAS. L. MAGEE, ESQ.,
Secretary National Red Cross Society, Washington, D. C.
Sir—Referring to your letter of August 18 and my reply of September 18, 1908, regarding the $2,000 sent by your Society through the Department of State for the relief of flood sufferers, I have to enclose herewith a copy of a report just received by me from Dr. Charles K. Edmunds, Secretary of the Canton Flood Relief Committee. I also enclose eight photographs taken in districts affected by the flood.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
WILLARD B. HULL,
Vice-Consul in Charge.
[Note.—$2,000 in gold in exchange gave $4,519.77 Mexican dollars for relief work.]
Building Destroyed at Tsing Yuen.
Dykes Destroyed on the North River.
Houses Destroyed by the High Water.
Destroyed Dyke and Houses near Tsing Yuen, North River District.
REPORT TO W. B. HULL, ESQ., AMERICAN VICE-CONSUL-GENERAL
IN CHARGE, AT CANTON,
IN REGARD TO
AID GIVEN TO FLOOD SUFFERERS, SUMMER 1908,
By
EXPENDITURE OF $2,000 GOLD,
RECEIVED FROM THE AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS.
| Amount Received | $4,519.77 Mex. |
| Disbursed in three lots: | |
| A. To Rev. Mr. Roach, of the Baptist Mission on North River, Yingtak | $1,000.00 Mex. |
| B. To Chinese Committee (per Kwong On & Co.), for West River Relief | 1,000.00 Mex. |
| C. To Rev. W. W. Clayson, London Mission, acting in co-operation with Chinese Commission on North River, Tsing Yuen and Sham Shui Districts | 2,519.77 Mex. |
The most needy districts were Yingtak and Tsing Yuen.
The money was spent in the following manner in the three cases:
A. Employment given to a daily average of 80-85 men and women and 30 cents and 25 cents (Mex.) per day, respectively, during some forty days, tiding them over the worst period of want until local officials came to aid more effectively. Work was the repairing of a main public highway. The Baptist Mission supplied the necessary road material, lime, etc. There remains a balance of $200 Mexican on hand.
B. While in Yingtak it was thought wisest to give employment to the needy as above described; along the West River it was deemed best to give money direct. In this region rice and other foodstuffs were being sold at a reduction of 30 or 40 per cent. through the agency of local gentry of wealth, officials and the native benevolent institutions. One thousand dollars was then distributed through the Native General Committee from the United Churches of Canton, and some thousands of people supplied with cash to buy food at these reduced rates.
C. In Tsing Yuen and Sham Shui Districts, Mr. Clayson personally assisted the Native Committee in distributing tickets, which were redeemable in cash at three centres, Tsing Yuen, Shek Kok and Sai Nam. Rather thorough investigations were made so as to reach the most needy, and especial attention was given to villages lying in from the river, which had, in fact, suffered most from devastation of crops, and yet had up to the time of this relief been least helped, because living back from the river they did not know how to get relief, and had few chances of earning any support.
The method of distribution adopted was very laborious, but it is thought that it was the most satisfactory. Those wanting most relief were reached and given tickets, and even if they were too weak to go to the centre to get the money, they could be trusted to see that they did get it. Those helped in these districts were mostly widows, the blind, lame and diseased and aged. Two days around each centre were taken to distribute tickets, and one day at the centre for distribution of money—with which the people then bought foodstuffs at reduced prices from the officials or Benevolent Societies—the latter turning their money over and over as long as it lasted under this depreciating process.
The $2,519.77 (Mexican) which our Committee gave Mr. Clayson was put with that of the Native Christian Committee, making a total of $4,610.00, which was disbursed at the three centres as follows: Tsing Yuen, $1,448; Shek Kok, $1,047, and in Sai Nam, $1,115.
It can confidently be said that but for the timely aid this money made possible, several thousands of people on the verge of starvation would have suffered worse agony than they did.
Our Committee wishes to offer our most sincere and appreciative thanks to the Red Cross Society for this timely aid, and to you for your kind offices in the matter.
Respectfully submitted,
C. K. EDMUNDS,
Secretary.
To Hon. W. B. Hull,
American Vice-Consul in Charge.
Refugees Camped in Mat Sheds on the Hillsides Waiting for the Waters to Recede.
Refugees on the Bank of the North River Waiting for the Boats of the Relief Committee.
AN INSPIRATION
BEING THE STORY OF ST. MATTHEW’S RED CROSS HOSPITAL.
By Nellie Olmsted Lincoln.
St. Matthews Red Cross Guild Hospital.
A beautiful thought of a wise and generous woman, like a fruitful seed, has blossomed and borne fruit in an ideal, modern hospital, just completed and given to the people of San Mateo.
Thursday, February 11, 1909, was a red letter day in the annals of this lovely little California town, for on that day was formally opened St. Matthew’s Red Cross Hospital, built and equipped by Mrs. Whitelaw Reid in memory of her mother.
It was a happy combination of circumstances that made it possible for four officers of the Red Cross to be present at the opening: Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, Hon. Benjamin Ide Wheeler, President of the California Branch; Mrs. John Merrill, Vice-President, and Mrs. Thurlow McMullin, Secretary. Addresses were made by the Rt. Rev. William T. Nichols, Bishop of California; the Rev. N. B. W. Gallwey, rector of St. Matthew’s; President Benjamin Ide Wheeler, of the University of California, and Mr. Paul Pinckney, thanking the donor in the name of the people of San Mateo.
Dining-room of Hospital.
Two years and a half ago, immediately after the earthquake, Mrs. Reid, feeling the great good a district nurse could do in the community, sent from New York a nurse who could be called upon for emergency cases and also to work among the poor. In providing for her, a house was built in which there was a fine operating room and rooms for six patients. Other nurses were secured, and in a short time one hundred and one cases were cared for. It was soon found that the building was inadequate, and Mrs. Reid immediately took steps to have it moved and on its place erected the one just completed.
This is a charming building, with timbered and plastered exterior, generous porches and accommodations for twenty-four patients, in three wards and ten private rooms. The operating room is entirely in white tiling, with an exceptionally fine light and every appliance for the use of surgeon and nurse. Opening from it are two rooms, one a sterilizing room with the finest of apparatus, and the other the room for anaesthetizing. In the entrance hall is a modest bronze tablet, bearing the date of opening and stating that the building is in memory of Jane Templeton Mills, born August 1st, 1832, died April 26th, 1888.
The halls are wide and well lighted, and the elevator with its electric motor can bring the patients from the lower floor to be wheeled upon the two porches, where they can find new life in the California sunshine. There is a special room for X-ray work, and there, as elsewhere, the outfit is complete.
Ward of St. Matthews Red Cross Guild Hospital.
All the nurses are graduates, Miss Sarah M. Dick, of the Cook County Training School, being superintendent, so that the care offered patients is of the best; and to hold and attract the highest type of nurse, everything connected with their rooms is as dainty as the rest of the hospital. Charming pictures in sitting room and dining room add to the homelike appearance. All physicians of the community are urged to bring their patients, and there is no distinction of creed—everything is offered in the broad spirit of the Red Cross.
Several beds have been endowed. Adjacent to the main building, yet surrounded by larger grounds of its own, stands the maternity house, in which there are also nurses’ rooms and headquarters for the district nurse, one of whose duties is to hold classes for anyone interested in “first aid.”
It seems as if Mrs. Reid had thought of every detail possible to make the gift as near perfect as a mortal may, even providing one of the purest specimens of radium. It is her earnest hope that similar hospitals will be erected throughout the country, so that in times of emergency they may be ready for immediate use for Red Cross purposes.
The affairs of the Hospital are administered by a Board of representative women consisting of Mrs. Ansel M. Easton, Vice-President; Mrs. Charles E. Green, Treasurer; Mrs. Lewis P. Hobart, Secretary; Mrs. Ernest Coxhead, Corresponding Secretary; Mrs. A. M. Easton, Mrs. William H. Crocker, Miss Jennie Crocker, Mrs. Frances C. Carolan, Mrs. Walter Martin, Mrs. Laurence Irving Scott, Mrs. William Tubbs, Mrs. E. D. Beylard, Mrs. N. B. W. Gallwey, Mrs. J. D. Grant, Mrs. Mountford Wilson, Mrs. James Otis Lincoln. The president is Rev. N. B. W. Gallwey, whose deep interest and able leadership have been of inestimable assistance.
Operating-room of Hospital.
Mrs. Reid is Honorary President of the Board, and as perhaps it can be said of no other person living, this modest, generous donor has in the completion of this work finished a golden circle around the world of love and service for suffering humanity, for the Philippines, Paris, London, New York and California now share in the ministering care which she has provided.
THE STORY OF THE RED CROSS
WAR’S AFTERMATH.
Improvised hospitals were organized in every straggling village, but by far the largest number of wounded were brought to Castiglione. There was an almost interminable procession of wagons, packed with officers and soldiers—cavalrymen, infantry, artillery—all battered and bleeding, covered with dirt and dust and blood, each jolt of the carts adding to their suffering. Many died on the way, their bodies being transferred from the wagons to the roadside, and left there for others to bury. Such were reported as “missing.”
From Castiglione many of the wounded were sent on to hospitals in other Lombard towns for regular treatment and necessary amputations. As the means of transportation were very limited, long delays were caused and the overcrowding baffles description. The whole city became one vast improvised hospital. The convents, the barracks, the churches and the private houses were filled with wounded. Others were placed on straw in the open courts and parks, with hastily constructed roofs of planks and cloth. The citizens of the town were seen running from street to street, seeking doctors for their suffering guests. Later others came and went with dejected air, begging for assistance to remove the dead bodies, with which they knew not what to do. All the physicians in the place were inadequate and most of the military surgeons were forced to leave with their armies.
Napoleon III.
By Saturday following the battle the wounded who had been assembled in the city became so numerous that the attempt to cope with the attention they required became impossible, and the most terrible scenes followed. There was food and water, but the wounded died from hunger and thirst, for there were not hands enough to minister to their necessities. There was lint in abundance, but not enough persons to apply it, nor to give it out. To make matters even worse, a sudden panic occurred. A detachment of hussars escorting a convoy of prisoners was mistaken by some of the peasants for Austrians and the report rapidly spread that the Austrian Army was returning. Houses were barricaded, their inhabitants hiding in cellars and garrets, and the French flags were burned. Others fled to the fields, and still others hastily sought Austrian wounded upon whom to lavish care. Down the streets and roads, blocked with vehicles of all kinds carrying wounded, raced frightened horses, amidst a din of curses and cries of fear and pain. Indescribable confusion prevailed; the wounded were thrown from the wagons and some were trampled under foot. Many of those in the temporary hospitals rushed out into the streets, only to be knocked down and crushed, or to fall exhausted from their weakness and fright. What agonies, what suffering, were undergone during those terrible days of June 25th, 26th and 27th! Wounds infected because of the heat, the dust and lack of care became insufferable. Poisonous vapors filled the air. Convoys of wounded still poured in. On the stone floors of the churches men of different nationalities lay side by side; French, Austrians, Slavs, Italians, Arabs, covered the pavement of the chapels, their oaths, curses and groans echoing through the vaulted roofs of the sanctuaries. The air was rent with cries of suffering—“We are abandoned, we are left to die in misery, and yet we fought so bravely.” In spite of the sleepless nights and the fatigue they had endured, they found no rest. In their distress they cried in vain for help. Some struggled in the convulsions of lockjaw. There lay one, his face black with the flies which infested the air, turning his eyes to all sides for help, but no one responded. There lay another, shirt, flesh and blood forming a compact mass that could not be detached. Here a soldier entirely disfigured, his tongue protruding from a shattered jaw, attracted M. Dunant’s pitying attention, and taking a sponge full of water he squeezed it into the formless cavity representing the man’s mouth. There, a miserable victim, whose nose, lips and chin had been taken off by a sabre cut, unable to speak and half blind, made signs with his hands, and M. Dunant brought him water and bathed his wounds gently. A third, with cloven skull, expired in a pool of his own blood on the floor of the church, a horrible spectacle, and those about him pushed aside his body with their feet, as it obstructed the passage.
By Sunday morning, though every household had become a hospital, M. Dunant succeeded in organizing a volunteer corps of women to aid the hundreds of wounded in the churches and open squares who were without assistance. Food and drink had to be brought them, as they were literally dying of hunger and thirst; their wounds had to be dressed; their poor bleeding bodies, covered with dust and vermin, washed, and all this in a terrible heat, in a nauseating atmosphere, and amidst the cries and lamentation of the suffering. In the largest church of Castiglione were nearly five hundred soldiers and a hundred more lay on the pavement in front of the church. In the churches the Lombard women—young and old—went from one to another, carrying water and giving courage to the wounded. From the fountains the boys brought great jugs of water. After the thirst of the suffering men had been assuaged, bouillon and soup were provided. Before any lint had been obtained the men’s underlinen had been torn into bandages to bind their wounds. M. Dunant bought new linen and sent his carriage to Brescia for other necessary supplies, for oranges, lemons and sugar, for refreshing drinks. He secured some new recruits for his volunteer band of mercy—an old naval officer, some English tourists, a Swiss merchant and a Parisian journalist. Some of these soon found the work more than they could endure and withdrew.
Pitiful are the stories M. Dunant tells of individual cases. Man after man would cry out in despair, “Oh, do not let me die,” as they seized the hands of their kind benefactor. “Oh, sir, please write to my father to console my poor mother!” exclaimed a young corporal of only twenty. M. Dunant took the address of his parents and in a few minutes the poor boy was dead. He was an only son, and but for the letter M. Dunant sent his parents they would never have learned his fate. An old sergeant, decorated with many chevrons, repeated with great sadness and with bitter conviction, “If I had only had care at first I should have lived—and now I must die,” and death came to him at nightfall. “I will not die! I will not die!” cried with almost fierce energy a grenadier of the guards, who only three days before was well and strong and who now, fatally wounded, struggled against this certain fate. M. Dunant talked with him, and, listening, he became calm and consoled, and finally resigned himself to death with the simplicity of a child.
On the steps of an altar, which were covered with straw, lay an African Chasseur, wounded in the thigh, leg and shoulder. For three days he had had nothing to eat. He was covered with dried mud and blood, his clothing was in rags. After M. Dunant had bathed his wounds, given him some bouillon and placed a blanket over him the poor fellow lifted his benefactor’s hands to his lips with an expression of infinite gratitude. At the entrance of the church was a Hungarian who kept crying aloud for a doctor. His back and shoulders, lacerated by grape-shot, were one quivering mass of raw flesh. The rest of his body was horribly swollen. He could not lie down nor rest. Gangrene had set in and the end came soon. Not far from him lay a dying zouave, crying bitterly. The fatigue, the lack of food and rest, the horror of the suffering, the fear of dying without any care developed among even the bravest soldiers a nervous condition that reduced many to tears. Often when not overcome by pain the dominant thought of the soldier was for his mother, and the fear of what she would suffer when she learned of his death. Around the neck of one of the dead men was found a locket containing the portrait of an elderly woman, evidently his mother, which, with his left hand, he had pressed to his heart.
On the pavement outside the church lay about one hundred French soldiers. They were placed in two long rows between which one could pass. Their wounds had been dressed and some soup given to them. They were calm, following with their eyes M. Dunant as he moved among them. Some said he was from Paris; others from South France. One asked if he were not from Bordeaux. Each wished to claim him for their own province or city. They called him “The Gentleman in White” because of the white clothes he wore. The resignation of these poor soldiers was pathetic; they suffered without complaint and died humbly and quietly.
On the other side of the church were wounded Austrian prisoners, fearing to receive the care they defied. Some tore away their bandages, others remained silent, sad and apparently without feeling, but most of them were thankful for any kindness received and their faces expressed their gratitude. In a remote corner one boy, not yet twenty, had received no food for two days. He had lost an eye and was burning with fever. He had hardly strength enough to speak or to drink a little soup. With good care he improved, and later, when sent to Brescia, he was almost in despair at being parted from the good women of Castiglione, whose hands he kissed while begging them not to abandon him. Another prisoner, delirious with fever, and also under twenty, lay with whitened hair from the horrors of the battle and his sufferings.
The women of Castiglione, noticing that M. Dunant made no distinction because of the nationality of the wounded, followed his example, caring for all alike, repeating with compassion: “All are brothers.”
All honor to these good women and young girls of Castiglione, devoted as they were modest. They never considered fatigue, nor disgust, nor sacrifice; nothing daunted nor discouraged them in their work of mercy.