FLANDERS POPPIES.

Cromwell Argus, Volume LXI, Issue 3168, 22 June 1931, Page 8

FLANDERS POPPIES.

Armistice Day Flowers of Remembrance. It is singular that popples, which are now associated throughout the Empire with the memory of those who "gave their lives that others might live," were closely connected with the dead 2COO years ago. Wreaths of popples were often placed on the statues of Somnus, in ancient Rome, and Virgil, in the Oeorgics, prescribes them as a propitiatory offering: "Inferias Orphei Lethaea papavera mittes." But this early association of the poppy with death bad its origin in its narcotic qualities. No other common flower,has petals lof so fine a red; its splendid color glories our fields, and is equally effective in the adornment of a laurel wreath. It was this fact that the unfortunate Empress Carlotta had in mind when she sent a poppy to Napoleon 111., who had objected to her using a scarlet ribbon for an Order of Merit in Mexico. "The Order of Nature," she said, "was before the Order of the Legion d'Honneur!"

The confidence which the public has from the earliest day shown in the British Legion, which was formed to take care of the interests of the exService men and the widows and orphans of men who lost their lives, was again demonstrated last Poppy Day when £602,698 was collected, com* pared with £579.000 in 1928. During the year 100,000 new members were enrolled.

The report for 1928-29 shows that £264,173 was spent in the relief of distress, while £19,191 was expended in small business loans and grants to 1199 applicants. No ex-soldier who goes to the Legion for assistance is turned away. It does not matter whether he is a member of the Legion; last year 90 per cent, of those assisted were not members. More than £3OOO was used to enable 807 families to move to the districts where employment had been found for them, and £18,605 to help 3,473 people to become settlers in the Dominions.