MERCY ON WINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 129, 2 June 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

MERCY ON WINGS.

ROUND WORLD WITH RED CROSS. The world moves (says the "Children's Newspaper"), and unless its institutions change with the changing need they arc apt to be left behind on the scrap-heap of outworn things. It is like a fight through time and space to follow the Eed Cross in its adaptations. The French Red Cross has a course for its nurses on transporting the wounded hy air, as well as first aid courses for aviators who want to become air ambulance pilots. The Polish Red Cross, seeing the suffering caused by the stoppage of travellers on the Polish-Russian frontier due to the exceptional conditions existing in the Soviet Union, has established a refuge in the station at Stolpce, where immigrants in either direction may stay while waiting to hear from relatives, or for money, or for permission to travel farther. The hostel is simple, but it is far more comfortable than the station door, where many of the travellers have been accustomed to wait for days while their misfortunes were untangled. The Red Cross Committee in Dakar, French West Africa, has organised a Negro Baby Show covering seven villages, at which nearly 750 splendid little black candidates were entered for the healthiest baby prizes. The mothers greeted the competition with a great deal of enthusiasm and tried to give their, babies such care as would put them

in tins prize-winuing group. The Red L'ross Committee provides baby clinic*? (ii help them. Greece, Vu often ravaged by disaster, hris set up three mobile field hospitals and -six dispensaries. The hospitals are elastic, as we say, designed to accommodate between 25 and - r >o patients each, and are kept in constant readiness ill Athens and can be dispatched to any point at two hours' notice. An inventory travels with the outfits, also with a printed "description of the duties and responsibilities of those who undertake lo give relief in time of earthquake, fire, Hood, or other calamity. The Turkish Red Crescent has laid out. a public park at the capital, Angora, and equipped it with playgrounds, improved accommodations at its mineral .spring* at Kara-Hjssar. and opened a nursing school at Istanbul. In the past few years it has had over 300,000 refugees to care for. returning Turks being repatriated from (Jrecce. The .Swedish I!cd Cross has opened II inquiry offices for seafarers in different ports. Last year these served over lOOil sailors and forwarded over 10,000 letter-,. These bureaux" are in touch with seamen's hostels, institutes and medical centres all over the world. The Italian lied t.'n-.-s organised :!■-> summer colonies at which more than 5000 children enjoyed happy, health-giving holidays away from the city's dust and heat. Its junior members raisod half the money needed for t'.'\'i. .Japanese children arc equally keen on Red Cross summer camps, of which there an? usually nearly 40 caring for 7000 children each year.