[Original]
Many women who would gladly work in the hospitals are prevented by other duties. They have their homes and children to look after, or old people or invalids dependent on them, or also they must tend the shops in their husbands' absence, or run the auberge or hotel, or work in the factories, but each one does something on the side for the "Union sacrée." It may not be more than a pair of knitted socks sent weekly to the trenches, or a cushion made of snipped-up cotton rags, cut fine and close, or a package of tobacco bought by carefully saved sous. From this universal wish have been created many good and useful works. During a recent visit to Paris I was impressed by the number of charities Frenchwomen have established and keep in fine running order. Let me mention a few:
1. Oeuvre des Blesses au Travail (work of wounded soldiers).
2. Oeuvre du Soldat dans la Tranchée (fund for the soldier in the trenches—send warm clothing).
3. For sending food and clothing to the French Prisoners in Germany.
4. The "Quinze Vingt" the government establishment for teaching the permanently blind a trade.
5. The Duchesse d'Uzes' organization for sending clothing and money to the soldiers from the invaded districts; men who have no news from their families or relations since the German invasion.
6. Soup kitchens—good, wholesome meals provided for ten cents. There are a number scattered over Paris, frequented by men and women of good positions before the war. Old artists and musicians out of work, professors who have lost their jobs, refugees from Lille, Courtrai and the invaded provinces, widows and girls with no means, little dressmakers and milliners without custom—a sad patient crowd who come silently and humbly to eat the bitter bread of charity. One group of ladies at the Hotel Mercedes (placed at their disposal) provides four hundred meals daily.
L'Oeuvre du Blesse au Travail (objects made by wounded soldiers) are showing in handsomely arranged shops, articles made by the men as they lie wounded in their beds. These articles consist chiefly of baskets of finely plaited straw, some artistically colored and of charming designs; others made by clumsier hands, crude but interesting—lace mats of plaited ribbon; string bags of macramé work; penholders and pencils, fashioned from spent cartridges. Rings made from the aluminum tips of exploded German shells picked up in the French trenches—these are very cunningly made and are often very handsome in design and execution. Every man, woman and child wants one of these rings, but as their only value is being "genuine," i. e., made in the trenches by a soldier, from the real shell tip, there are naturally not enough to go 'round.
Flowers made out of bread, tinted and modeled to an exact imitation of Dresden flowers, stand in little gilt baskets, also made by the soldier. Dolls as Red Cross nurses, soldiers, doll furniture and houses, boxes, baskets, no end of tempting little things are displayed and sold by the ladies of the committee, who guarantee the genuineness of each object.