GIFTS FOR OUR TROOPS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 240, 7 October 1916, Page 17

GIFTS FOR OUR TROOPS.

A busy scene presented itself in the rooms oi the Auckland Patriotic League when the arrangements for sending Christmas gifts to the troops abroad were in progress. Few know the amount of routine work necessary for the successful dispatch of the mountains ot boxes and cases which carry our love to the boys who are fighting for us in faraway France and in arid Egyptian sand dunes. "I've found out what it's like to be in a factory," said one lady, with a laugh; and a factory it was, with everything going on oiled wheels. To begin with, the cases, ninety-two in number, have to be lined with old newspaper. Then each little cardboard box has a pretty label on the lid. Each one has to be pasted neatly on by someone's fingers. There are 5500 of these labels to be pasted—a messy job, willingly undertaken by the voluntary worker. Each box has so many postcards, with a card of good wishes from Lady Liverpool; and theee have to be enclosed in the folding card, bearing the donor's name and address, which is detachable as an acknowledgment from the receiver. The pipes sent forward to the fighting units have all to be counted and also the packets of tobacco. There are 2750 pipes, with tobacco iv proportion. Handkerchiefs have to be collected, counted, and neatly folded to the number of 11,000, and rolled up in pairs. Even the leather laces provide work for busy feminine fingers. They have to be detached from tho holding piece and tied together with a reef knot: —a trick which it took the makers of "granny knots" a little time to learn. There were 5500 pairs to be handled before being placed round the boxes. The small Christmas cakes in tins numbered 5500, and each had to have a neat piece of white paper pasted around the edges to make the oareels air-tight, before being •wrapped in oiled paper to keep the damp out. The same treatment .was needed by the 5700 packets of sweets and 3000 packets of hard, plain chocolate, which has been locally made, as is the case with every possible article. There are 12,000 tins of potted meat, and these and the tinned milk are each stamped "Merry Christniae," to show the boy who receives them that the hearts of his womankind are with him always. The lollies are in pink paper, while the cakes are dressed in white; but each says in clear stamped letters, "Kia Ora"; and it is easy to see the tender smile that will come to warworn lips when the cry of his motherland suddenly greets him. even if only on a scrap of paper. A soldier boy wrote to a contributor of the Patriotic League, thanking her for the gift he had received, and said that "the most delicate luxuries we can buy in France do not seem half so sweet ac those we have received from dear old New Zealand." The work in connection with the Christmas gifts has taken an average of fifty ladies each day for a week, under the control of Miss Kissling, Mrs. Overton-Smith. and Miss Wri<rht. The general parkins is arranged by Mrs. Parkes. Mrs. Buttle, and -Mr.?. F. W. Wilson, who are at the liead of the lnxce clan of ready workers, whose one aim is to give every absent boy a touch of Eome, love, and friendship.

Boofi polish which has .become dry can be successfully softened -with a few drops of turpentine.