OF YOUR CHARITY!

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2796, 14 June 1916, Page 3

OF YOUR CHARITY!

GARMENT TEA AT THE HOME OF COMPASSION. [By SvLvius.] In a large, rather squat-looking and impressivo brick building that nestles .011 a sunny hillside 011 tho road to Island Bay is accomplished some of the noblest work among children that is recorded in this country; I don't know, as a matter of fact, that it is recorded, except in tho inner consciousness of tho many devoted admirers and helpers of the good Sisters of Compassion. The work is all done so quietly and unostentatiously that few. even hear, less know, about it. In tho grev building among.the green hills, established by tlio Rev. Mother Mary Joseph Aubert (now in Rome, and whose eighty-first, birthday occurred last mouth), there aro somo eighty children, gathered from Don'tcareville, Letemstarvcton, and other by-paths of neglect, to be nurtured back to health and strength by the loving hands of these high-minded women in the blue gabardines, and prepared, under their watchful care, for a fair launching into the world. It is idle to reiterato that many of their charges havo been snatched from the grave, some have been sent to tho "Home as a last resource, some, alas, have been left alone in the world by parents with no senso of responsibility. Vet what a wonderful sight it is to see those babies! There are twenty-two below two years of age in the Homo at present, and they are the jolliest, prettiest lot of youngsters anyone could see in a day's march. Sunlight filled every corner of the large, airy playroom, where the babies were swimimng about the polished floor as if they had all been submarined in their cots, and were mating a valiant attempt to reach the shore. A charm ing Maori baby (the only one left of a family of sixteen) crooned softly in tho grateful warmth of a big log fire, while two sturdy boys of fourteen months wero having a three-round spar against a long low form. The round railed enclosure, in the centra of the room, was the bridge of the submersible that had-sent all the dots a-swimming, or so it appeared to a five-year-old boy visitor, who declared he had "never seen a house so fuller of babies."

Their littlo refectory, a gorgeous snn(room, the miniature infirmary, and big airy dormitories were as bright and clean as willing hands could make, them. There is a sad side to this great selfsacrificing work. There, through the open dooT—no further, thanks—lie some twenty incurably 'diseased or deformed 'children. They have to be looked after by someone, and as the good Sisters say: "We can't be cuddling the pretty babies all day long!" Then thero was the schoolroom—a wonderful place, with children from three to seven, playing and learning at the same time .in tho quaintest anil most delightful manner under tho eye of a Sister, whose happy enthusiasm was marred only by the depredations and forays of that scamp Pop, the incorrigible two-year-old of the Home.

The point of this sketch is that, following last year's practice, the Sisters intend, to give a grand tea in the Home to their friends early in. August—a garment tea—and are asking all who intend to come to bring at least one garment for a. child of any age between one month and four years. This is surely not much to ask. Last year the tea/was a most delightful function—it promises to be even more successful this winter.