PALACE OF GIFTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 201, 24 August 1940, Page 8

PALACE OF GIFTS.

THE WAR PRISONERS.

STRICT WATCH BY CENSOR

War has brought a complete change of ecene to St. James' l j alai-e. This once royal home now houses the Red Cross department for prisoners of war. Uere. women are working long hours packing grocery parcels which in three weeks' time, if their journey is successfully accomplished, will be received by British prisoners in German camps. Each eoldier receives two parcels a week, his 16/ worth of food including sardines, canned stews, canned mince, conned fruit and chocolate.

More women are collecting bundles of clothing for the prisoners in the banquetting hall of the palace. Some of the prisouers ask for plimsolls eo that they can keep fit in gymnasiums: others want shorts for bathing in village pools. In the armoury, suits of armour, bayonetts, pikes, swords and ■ other hi&toric weapons still cover the walls, but no one has time to glance at them and the usual silence of the vast hall is broken now by the sound of girls' voices, as they count out money that is to bo sent awav.

The palace's picture gallery is another centre of activity and here reproductions of such famous pictures ae Winterhalter's young Victoria and Holbein's. Henry VIII. look down on the censor—a middle-aged motherly woman—who examines all the private parcels sent by next of kin each three mouths. Her work is saddening at times end children will often try to hide messages in tho toes of eocks and these must be sought for and thrown away. Messages are, of course, strictlv forbidden.