OUR BOYS AT THE FRONT

New Zealand Tablet, 31 May 1917, Page 34

OUR BOYS AT THE FRONT

APPRECIATION OF GIFTS. Writing to Miss A. C. Kennedy, of the Wellington Catholic Knitting Guild, from “ somewhere” in France, under date February 26, Chaplain-Captain Barra, S.M., says: “ Last night when I came back to my billet I found your most welcome and much appreciated parcel of socks and mittens. The boys are thankful to the ladies who work for them and show their enthusiasm in at once discarding the well-worn old socks for the new. The articles sent are so useful and so strong that we who have to move about in mud and rain know their value best of all. I have met quite a number of our lads whom I knew quite well in dear old New Zealand. All wish to be back again in the land they sailed away from, but all are just as determined to continue the fight until the ‘ gentle Hun ’ has been beaten down to his knees. For the chaplain war is not an unmixed evil, the boys so brave and so good —taken all in all, —• that one is proud to have anything to do with them. ‘ Smile ’ is their motto. And the New Zealand boys are splendid. They are physically a fine set of men and as courageous as the best. We are not allowed to say much about our life at the front, and nothing at all of our movements and places of abode. It is just as well that such should be the rule, for he news would not always be quite reliable, some boys are as good with their tongues as they are with their rifles. By the time this will reach Wellington the war will be at its fiercest I daresay. The people of Belgium and of the invaded French territory will hail with great joy the departure of the brutal Boche. Round

the battlefields all is ruin and the picture of misery. It is quite pathetic to see the old peasant men and women move about tending their farms as well as they can under shell fire. To go would be to give up everything, and they have not the heart to, so until the military authorities compel them in their own interest to abandon the broken-down and shell-ridden building they call honie they cling to' them.

‘‘Please thank the good ladies who work for the comfort of the boys, in my name and that of the men with me, for their kindness and useful gifts. May God bless them and give to all the reward they deserve.” ■* -

Miss Kennedy also received a grateful letter from Chaplain-Captain Skinner, who is stationed at Sling Camp, England. The work of the members of the Catholic Knitting Guild is thus shown to be much appreciated, and these letters of encouragement should be very gratifying to those ladies who have so kindly devoted their time to this worthy work and prove an incentive to them to continue those endeavors which has made the lives of our boys at the front a little more comfortable.