NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVI, Issue 16870, 31 May 1915, Page 6

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

America is strictly neutral, says the President of the- United States, but America’s private citizens contrive in one way and another to give more power to the Allies' elbow. A Philadelphia trade journal lately published an account of a war-time institution in Paris of which, as it said, “every American can be justly proud.” This is the American Hospital of Paris, which is doing splendid service for humanity on the side of France and her partners in battle. The building was erected for use as a school, and was known as The Lycee Pasteur. It was receiving its finishing touches at the time of the outbreak of the terrible conflict now raging in. Europe. The authorities very prompt!' - turned this building over to the use of the American Hospital of

Paris, which at that time was an organisation occupying a small building in Paris proper, but conducting a very worthy work in general medical as v. ill as surgical cases. The place was remodelled where necessary, and completely equipped with both apparatus and staff in time to receive the first patients within thirty days of the transfer of the building itself. All this work was done at. the expense, and under the supervision, of Americans, and the hospital is fully maintained by American subscriptions.

The great hospital is chiefly devoted to surgical work, and thousands of wounded soldiers have been “patched up ” here in the last few months. In addition to the hospital corps of surgeons and nurses there are maintained, along the battle line, corps of field surgeons and nurses. To give some idea of the extent of this work it is mentioned that there are one hundred and fifteen automobiles continuously in the .service of the hospital. American women form the nursing staff, and over each ward there is the name of as American city, whose citizens provide the dollars that go to give the mutilated victims of the great war the mosttender attention and skilful surgery that healing science can provide. '

The fine generosity of the New Zcalaud people in response to the ever-re-peated calls upon them for assistance to the distressed Belgians will have a permanent memorial in at least oite of our cities. The name of H. E. Partridge will be banded" on to future generations of Aucklanders as that, of the citizen who sacrificed the art collection of a lifetime when “ the cry of the little peoples went up to God in pain,” a cry that carried to him a peculiarly strong appeal, for ho knew the Belgians, and he could appreciate to the full the calamity that had overtaken the brave little nation. Yet Mr Partridge would scarcely call his parting with tho Lindauor art gallery a- sacrifice, after all, for it will remain as the heritage of the city in which he has lived for more than forty years, a. legacy that will not only bring to mind this country’s liberal answer to the call for help, but that will preserve something of tho real Old New Zealand for the coming years when the adventurous and romantic period in the Dominion’s history will have assumed the remoteness and dimness almost of a- dream.

The Auckland’ public performed their part of the giving to the Belgians with excellent promptness and cheerfulness. The conditions on which Mr Partridge presented his gallery, of between seventy and eighty pictures, valued at £2S,CCO, was that the public should’ subscribe £IO,OOO to the relief fund. This, of course, was in addition to the tens of thousands already given for the Belgians. 'The money came pouring in, in big cheques and in shillings and even pence, and in a very few weeks the list was closed over-subscribed, and the £IO,OOO cheque handed to Mr Partridge and handed over by him to the Council for Belgium, while at the same time ho handed to the Mayor of Auckland the documents conveying the pictures to the city for all time. The story of that £IO,OOO cheque and its triple handling will always l>e a pleasant memory in Auckland, a place which has benefited more than any other centre in the Dominion from the munificence of its private citizens, from the days of Grey and Cost-lev and’ Mackelvie onwards.