THE CATHOLIC LADIES’ PATRIOTIC SOCIETY, SYDNEY.
This Society was organized the second year of the War by the ladies of the Sacred Heart Parish, Sydney, and was intended to supply the religious needs of the Cape Breton soldiers and Chaplains, and to send comforts direct to the soldiers in the trenches. However, as the War went on, the Society enlarged its scope and embraced all kinds of patriotic work. The work of the Society was carried on by packing tin boxes with fruit cake, candy, cigarettes, socks, khaki shirts, and other things too numerous to mention. These were addressed to each soldier and acknowledged in due time.
The success of the Society was in no small measure due to the activity of the President, Mrs. V. F. Cunningham, who held that office during the four years of the Society’s existence.
The following short statement will give some idea of the work of the Society:
| RECEIPTS. | |
|---|---|
| Total amount received from general city collections | $2,058 89 |
| Amount from other sources | 975 80 |
| $3,034 69 | |
| EXPENDITURE. | |
| Paid supplies for boxes sent Overseas | $2,153 79 |
| Paid Chaplain’s supplies | 250 00 |
| Paid Catholic Hut Fund | 200 00 |
| Paid Hospital supplies | 305 90 |
| Paid Local Hospital, Khaki Club, etc., etc. | 125 00 |
| $3,034 69 | |
CHAPTER LIII.
THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS.
Until the spring of 1918, the war work of the Knights of Columbus in Nova Scotia consisted in aiding the work carried on at St. Mary’s Army and Navy Club at Halifax, and in sending money Overseas to aid the Catholic Army Huts in England and at the Front. The work done by these Huts became more and more extensive as the War went on, and the amount of money that each council could send from its own funds became wholly inadequate to enable these Huts to give efficient service.
In May, 1918, His Lordship the Right Reverend James Morrison, Bishop of Antigonish, addressed a letter to the Knights of Columbus of the Maritime Provinces, setting out the needs of the Catholic Army Huts and the slender financial resources at their disposal. “Accordingly,” he says, “I feel it a pressing duty to ask the Knights of Columbus to organize a general public campaign for funds to provide our Catholic soldiers Overseas, or wherever they may be assembled, with Catholic Huts, Club Rooms and accessories thereto, in which the Army Chaplains may be enabled more efficiently and more conveniently to minister to their religious welfare, and where the soldiers themselves, irrespective of denominational affiliations, may have at their disposal such accommodations in social life as may be a proper safeguard for their moral welfare.”
On the receipt of this letter the Knights began the work of organizing a campaign which extended throughout the whole of Canada. More than one million dollars were raised in the Dominion, to which sum the various counties of Nova Scotia contributed as follows:—
| Halifax | $56,621 95 |
| Cape Breton | 28,562 80 |
| Pictou | 9,509 63 |
| Antigonish | 6,635 49 |
| Cumberland | 5,337 73 |
| Inverness | 4,802 46 |
| Guysboro | 3,330 05 |
| Yarmouth | 2,877 97 |
| Colchester | 2,475 29 |
| Kings | 2,405 57 |
| Hants | 1,961 66 |
| Richmond | 1,723 25 |
| Digby | 1,542 67 |
| Victoria | 1,144 25 |
| Queens | 1,102 20 |
| Lunenburg | 669 50 |
| Annapolis | 444 55 |
| Shelburne | 68 50 |
| Total for the Province | $131,215 52 |