VICTORIA LEAGUE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2663, 7 January 1916, Page 3

VICTORIA LEAGUE

ASSISTANCE FOR RUSSIAN PRISONERS. The following letter lias been received from Miss Talbot, secretary of the Victoria League in London: —The Executive Committee ventures to draw tho attention of Victoria Leagues and allied associations overseas to the work of sending clothes, food, and money to tho Russian prisoners interned in Germany. Tho prisoners from Franco. England and Italy can all bo cared foi by their own countrymen and women; parcels are sent every week to each individual, and there is ample evidence to show that, wretched as our poor men have been, they would have suffered from hunger and cold ill a far worse degree had it not been for the parcels from home.

Quite recently there was an exchange or German and Russian prisoners ; the Germans were handed over by their captors well fed and healthy. The Russians arrived broken and ill, starved, ragged, diseased. This is what happens to prisoners in Germany unless they are succoured by their own people. Nqw,«the terrible part of the Russian prisoners' position is, that their own people cannot help them. No lists have' been furnished and there aro no means of sending things from Russia to Germany. The only way presents can reach prisoners is by Switzerland and Holland. Countess Beuckendorlf, the Russian Ambassadoress, has formecl-a coir-mittee which forwards foodstuffs in bulk and clothes to neutral committees, in Switzerland and Holland, who have made arrangements with tho German Government and can send the presents direct to the various camps. There_ are more than a million Russian prisoners in Germany; they need clothing and feeding if they are ever to return to their own people in any kind of health and strength. The Dominions overseas, besides sending their men to figiit. in Europe for the common cause of , freedom, have sent their generous help to the European sufferers by the war. Belgium, France, Italy, and Serbia have all had aid for their prisoners from people of the British race. And now there is Russia, with the greatest need of all. Russia, who has borne the severest trials in the groat fight, who lias seen vast tracts of her country devastated, towns and villages burned, millions of her subjects homeless, Russia has now the anguish of knowing that the million of her soldiers in the keeping of the enemy are being slowly weakened and injured by'bad food a>nd careless treatment. Surely the Empire must help here also. A, million warm shirts are wanted, two million pairs of socks, a million comforters, a million pairs of mittens, and tinned foods of all sorts, and money to pay for their dispatch. Here is a war work which, in spite of in space, and difference in tongue, claims help from all tho members of the greatest confederation of free nations the world has ever seen. Note.—Anything sent should be marked outsPe "For Russian Prisoners," and tho lispatch of any cases notified by post to this office.'