In the earlier stages of the war considerable adverse comment was excited by the numbers of society women who forced themselves through their influence with high officials into the fighting area, where they were not fitted to be of help and were often a serious hindrance.
This evil has now been nearly eliminated. With a growing sense of the awful seriousness of the war the most frivolous of society women have become subdued. Under the direction of such masterful men as General Kitchener and General Joffre the army officers and other officials have refused to allow any women, however highly connected, who were actuated merely by curiosity, to proceed to the front.
Only women qualified to nurse and belonging to a recognized war nursing organization are now allowed to go near the fighting area.
At one time criticism was excited by the sight of Lady Dorothy Fielding, the twenty-year-old daughter of the Earl of Denbigh, standing among a group of admiring French and Belgian officers at the front. It was assumed that a girl of such an age and such training could only be a hindrance among the fighting men, and it was even hinted that she was addicted to flirting.
Whatever she may have been at first, the young Lady Dorothy has now changed all opinions of her and become a real heroine. With training and experience now lasting for months she has become a most valuable as well as courageous nurse in rescuing and caring for the wounded. Naturally a strong girl and accustomed to athletic sports, she has shown herself peculiarly fitted for this kind of work.
Many ladies of rank interested in the wounded have lately shown their good sense by not trying to go to the fighting area. The handsome and skittish Duchess of Westminster, who excited some attention at first by bustling around among the soldiers in France has now gone to Serbia, where there is the greatest need of Good Samaritans. The hospital founded by her at Le Touquet, near Paris, has done good work.
The condition of Serbia is such that any women who ventures there must see the extremes of human misery. The whole country has been turned into a charnel house by the invading Austrians, followed by the still more terrible typhus fever. Men, women and children are dying of disease without being able to find a bed to lie on or a roof to cover them.
One report stated that young Lady Paget had died while nursing typhus patients in Serbia. Her mother is the well-known American Lady Paget, wife of General Sir Arthur Paget, and the daughter is married to a distant cousin, named Sir Richard Paget, British Minister to Serbia. Later news came that young Lady Paget had not died of the fever, but she is passing through scenes of horror that have not been known in Europe for three centuries.
IV—STORY OF A NEW YORK MOTHER WHO SOUGHT HER SON IN THE TRENCHES