A HUMANITARIAN WORK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 234, 3 October 1935, Page 6

A HUMANITARIAN WORK.

VISITS TO SOLDIER PATIENTS. (To tlio Editor.) Your correspondent "'lobar," in speaking of the efforts made to alleviate the sad lot of the mentally afflicted returned men, remarks, "There are men who undertake this work (visiting and distributing little comforts to the mental patients) because many relatives find it hard to visit." This casual reference scarcely does justice to the hard work and self-sacrificing efforts of the few men who regularly visit their sick comrades. There is a small devoted band of returned soldiers, numbering about five or six, who year after year carry on this work, giving up their Saturday afternoon leisure, their sports or other interests, in order to carry cheer and comfort to their unfortunate comrades in the Mental Hospital. Their only reward is the joy and pleasure they bring to these poor fellows. I was privileged on a recent Saturday to see them at work distributing cigarettes, sweets, magazines, etc., and it was a poignant sight to see the patients waiting with anxious eyes for the arrival of these good fellows, and then their delight as the visitors, laden with gifts, passed among them, smiling, shaking hands, chatting and chaffing, with a name for every one, and a gift for all. The gifts are good, .but the fact that they are not forgotten is of more value to these stricken men, and it is wonderful to think that all this quiet work of humanity and loyalty to old comrades is carried out unobtrusively and sclf-sacrificingly by the same hand-fill of men who never come up before the public in any spectacular movement in regard to the mental soldiers, who. give no names and publish 110 record of their activities, but who exemplify in their lives and their labours the true spirit of comradeship and unselfish service. Honour to whom honour is due and hats off to the R.S.A. visiting committee. ISABEL if. CLUETT.