A NURSE'S CAMP.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LX, Issue LX, 1 November 1910, Page 7

A NURSE'S CAMP.

A unique kind of camp for training nurses for service in war time was held recently near Studland Bay, in Dorsetshire. About fifty young ladies, under the command of a ladies' organising commandant, arrived at the nearest station by train and marched about four miles to tlie spot where they were to camp for a .week. They were dressed in a very service-like uniform, and carried haversacks and water-bottles. Their kit consisted of a divided skirt, Norfolk golf jacket, and helmet. The material was neutral blue-grey, absolutely without ornament, and very serviceable and workmanlike. The special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, comment- ( ing on the simplicity of the outfit, remarked that no one would be able to accuse the young ladies constituting- the Women's Sick and Wounded Convoy Corps of having joined for the glamor of the uniform. The corps, it may be explained, is a body organised to fill a gap in the organisation of the medical department .of the Territorial Force. Its members will serve at liome or abroad, between the clearing hospitals and the great stationary hospitals. Its aim is to assist in evacuating the clearing hospitals at the head of the lines of communication, to learn to organise sick and wounded convoys by rail, road, or waterway, to feed and care for the sick and wounded between the clearing hospitals and the base. The corps is a nursing body pure and simple, without ambition to approach nearer the scene of active fighting than a day or two's march. The members are taught riding ano! the care and management of horses, as well as how to saddle and bridle their mounts. This latter is for the sake of mobility. They are also taught cookery and first auT. An especially interesting feature of the camp wa& the fact that it was run on strict military lines, and under strict discipline. Drill and field work lectures and demonstrations in anatomy, physiology, first aid, and sanitation' filled in the day, reveille being sounded at 6 a.m. A camp guard of eight ladies paraded every night at 8 o'clock under a male non-commissioned officer, an?T remaffied on duty all night. Sentries were posted, and everything was done in correct military fashion. Late visitors to the camp ran the risk of being challenged with "Who goes there?" delivered in a lady-like soprano instead of the familiar gruff bass, and of being marched to the guard room by a girl sentry ii the reply was not satisfactory. Thf sergeant-instructor who initiated the ladies into the mysteries of forming fours and line and company column, found it a severe tax on his memory to refrain from speaking of the right-hand "man," and to recollect that the methods suitable for a squad of raw Tommy Atkinses would not be quite the correct thing for a company oT ladies. Altogether ft was a trying day for him.

New Zealand Railways insert a notice of alteration in time-table. A woman, aged seventy-four, who was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment at the London sessions for stealing two skirts from a shop in Edgware road, wa r stated to have spent forty-two years in prison.