OUR WOUNDED SOLDIERS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2951, 11 December 1916, Page 7

OUR WOUNDED SOLDIERS

4 NEW ZEALANDERS IN ENGLAND (From Our Own Correspondent.) London, October 10. There are never any Now Zealandcrs in the United Kingdom who aro quito without friends for long, for the hospitality of the British people- has never allowed our men to feel like strangers for long. Most of them aro "adopted" in a more or less casual manner by visiting ladies, who happen to meet them in tho wards; and they rarely want seriously for any comforts. It is tho business of the Now Zealand War Contingent Association to seo that they don't, and that this chance of hospitality is mado a certainty. The association has more than 160 visitors, who* are mostly New Zealand ladies, and they call regularly at military hospitals throughout tho British Isles wherever there are any New Zealand patients in the wards. Where there are, they aro visited regularly, supplied with newspapers and smokes, writing material, and any small con> forts which they require, such as shaving kit, tooth brushes, soap, stationery, etc. In the case of patients who aro confined to bed, they also get a regular supply of fruit, cream,' etc. This attention continues until tho men are discharged well and fit. Any single month's report of tho Visiting Committee of the War Contingent Association will show how widespread the work is, and what tho organisation means. In Arnigst—before the capture of Flers—thero were 1938 New Zealand wounded in tho United Kingdom. Most of them were concentrated in tho Now Zealand hospitals at Brockonhurst, Walton, Codford, and Homchurch, but tho problem was the remaining 582, who were scattered over 110 British hospitals as far apart as Dundee.in tho north and Netley in tho soutn. Yet every one of these, thanks to tho organisation of the War Contingent Association, was regularly visited, supplied with necessary comforts, and reported to tho head office. Thero each case is recorded by card index,-with every visit and requisition and tho progress of tho euro.

The Soldier's "Fag." Tho soldier's "fag" has becomo so well-recognised a weakness that it takes a bold man-to attack it on the ground that smoking is injurious to the health. Yet such a man has now arisen. Most people will bo quito reaily to believe- that unlimited cigarette smoking is detrimental to the health of men in the trenches—where life \is semi-sedentary—but particu-of-hospital patients. One of tho regular activities of the War Contingent Association is tho distribution of smokes through its visitors to Neir Zealanders in British hospitals. The allowance is limited to forty cigarettos per-week. Medical opinion hero and there says that this is too much, but the hospital reguJations often do not restrict smoking at*<9ll. Everybody knows tho soldier is attached to his "fag," and that no amount of regulation can keep him from it. I have known a hospital patient spend as much as 10s. a week on additional smokes. If thero was an average of 2000 New Zealand soldiers in hospital and convalescent camp, the bill of the association for the modicum of forty "fags" per week would run to more than £5000 per yea*. As a matter of fact it is possiblo by getting them in bond to save a good deal of this sum.