THE EARTHQUAKE AND WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 454, 12 March 1909, Page 3

THE EARTHQUAKE AND WOMEN.

MESSINA SCENES. _ English papers continue to publish stray bits of information connected with the greatest disaster known in history, tho Messina earthquake. A correspondent in Italy writes to one papor:—"lt is impossible not to feel profound omotion when hearing of the countless acts of heroism performed by those who so nobly ignored their own sufferings in the' Messina trouble to help others. Among the brightest examples of those who refused to seoli safety, in order that they might render aid, are the Mother Superior, Maria Antiouetta, of the Convent of the Immacolata, at Roggio, and Sister Maria Teresa, two youthful nuns who arrived in Florence last week in charges of a band of orphans. Perhaps few recognised theso heroines who continued to wear tho same habits, grown shabby and discoloured by tho torrents of rain to which the wearers exposed themselves day and night. Nuns are so invariably trim and tidy of aspect that it was touching to note how frayed tho 'Red Cross , bands on their arms had become, and hoiy crumpled and soiled their goffered white veils. Huge men's boots of undyed leather showed the difficulty of procuring any kind of clothing after tho earthquake, and", in fact, the nuns had to share what, they were actually wearing with destitute, refugees. ."Jiothor Mr.ria Antoinette, in particular, appears to havo accomplished wonders, apart from the endless task of binding up injuries and nursing the rescued. Immediately after the catastrophe, iu which she escaped death by a miracle, she hastened from convent to convent of her order, only pausing to aid all she met in need of help on the way. -At Catona sho found twenty-two nuns and ten orphans all injured, and many dead, but she says that the worst feature was that marauders fell on the ruins of tho convent and stole all they could without the faintest effort to succour tho unhappy inmates. By her courageous conduct the Mother Superior actually drove off tho miscreants until she and tho survivors had started for another refuge."

A splendid testimony to the courage and resource of .Italian women was given in : a letter, recently published, from one of the crew of H.M.S. Duncan, who was. employed in relieving the distress at Messina. He says:. "The men who survived the earthquako'won't lend a hand to do anything, even to bury their-own dead. The women- are working day/and night, carrying water to our tents, and in many cases, with pick and shovel, digging out tho dead and wounded."