DEPARTURE OF THE 1st BATTALION, RIFLE BRIGADE: H.R.H. THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT LIGHTING THE MEN'S CIGARETTES.
Oct. 1899.] Hospital Ships and Relief Funds.
Those who at home and in ease were to reap the fruits of their love and devotion responded to the best of their power. Employers announced that they would pay half wages to the women and children whose bread-winners had been called away; enormous funds were raised to support the widowed and the fatherless of those who should fall, and to keep in comfort the families of the soldiers. Workmen subscribed their shillings; the well-to-do their guineas; the rich their thousands of pounds. The most intensely national of poets, Mr. Rudyard Kipling, appealed in touching verse to the nation's heart. In answer to his appeal women sent their rings, children their pence, and the poor and humble gifts in kind. No names were published; the giving was simple and unostentatious, and therefore all the nobler. Thus our soldiers were made to feel that they went forth to battle with the nation's love and with its fervent prayers.
[Photo by W. & D. Downey, Ebury Street.
The latest photograph of H. R. H. the Princess of Wales in Drawing-room dress.
THE "PRINCESS OF WALES" HOSPITAL SHIP; FORMERLY THE "MIDNIGHT SUN" EXCURSION STEAMER.
Her Royal Highness, ever to the front in the cause of suffering humanity, has taken the keenest and most earnest interest in the fitting-up of this hospital ship towards the cost of which she has made a large private grant of funds.
