TEA AT THE PIONEER CLUB

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2994, 3 February 1917, Page 5

TEA AT THE PIONEER CLUB

LETTERS FROM SERBIA. The members of the Pioneer Club assembled .yesterday afternoon in order to hear Dr. Agnes Bennett's interesting letters from Serbia. Mrs. A. B-. Atkinson, who rend the letters aloud to tho members, stated that over £70 had'already been raised by the exertions of the members for Dr. Bennett's hospital in Serbia. Roses and hydrangeas decorated the reception room, where the tea was served. During the afternoon Miss Shutevant played some selections on the piano, and Mrs. D. C. Bates recited. The doctor's letter and an address by a Serbian officer will be of interest. Dr. Agnes Bennett wrote: —"Just this last week wo have had very bad weather, with the result ambulances would not go out and patients were left upon hills in'dressing stations, with the very minimum of attention. Tho result to us was a spell and time to think, and the knowledge that when they come they will just be of tho very worst, and so it has been. I have thought of much outside the daily" round, and to-night have some just horrible cases have come. To-morrow we shall be just as busy as we possibly can be all day in tho operating theatre. would have operated on several tonight, but wc find much the best plan - is to feed them and give thorn a good I," night's rest, with a hypo of. morphia, • and operate after 12 or 16 hours—this even" of tho gangrene cases. Winter transport is heartrending to deal with. I am enclosing a copy of an oration that was given at the funeral of one of my orderlies who died of malignant ma- • laria. It was a terrible ,hlow to ns all, but in that it called forth this almost wonderful expression of appreciation from the Serbs. I think it has been almost worth while. Will you please ask that it may be read at one of the afternoons at tho club. The club's thought of me has really touched mo It is 8.30 p.m.. and I am sitting in my 12 by 10 office tent with a hurricane lamp and a big fur coat, like a bear skin: it is such a comfort. The camp is all in bed, only a night sister flitting round with a lantern occasionally visible. We breakfast at 6.30. so all go to.bed early. My staff have iust worked splendidly and we have had such nice things said about tho hospital. I do feel proud of thorn all at times. Actually one of the big general hospitals in Salonika sent up their sanitary officer the other day to see the admission arrangements, which, though of the simplest, have apparently not been on regie elsewhere. We put every man in a macintosh on a stretcher in an admission tent, and he is thoroughly washed ■ down; We have lots of hot water and antiseptics leady, and on the comparatively high tables on which the stretchers are placed, it is easy to cut off their cjothes and wash them thoroughly. They are carried to their beds on the same stretchers, and there is not a lot of moving—it saves a lot of hard work, and no dirty clothes go to the wards. I long to write reams, but'l can't—one can't write about the real ' things one longs to put on paper—suffice it to say I have never regretted my move here, and I shall always consider it a great honour to have helped in tho repatriation of a race such as tho Serbs, whom I believe are capable of great things, and are certainly most delightful to deal with. It roallv is most lawfully good of those dear Pioneer (Club people to have those afternoons tor me. I feel very-touched by them. What is really running away with all our £ s. d. here is splints arid surgical appliances. You have no idea of the difficulties of dealing with those awful compound fractures, where it is toueii and go to save the limb. We want every kind of splint that ever was made, and they do cost such a lot.' The committee are, I fear, beginning to think we must curtail our expenses. If a donation went to them for my unit, it would help me immensely. "Tho following is a copy of the oration given by a Serbian officer at the funeral of Olive Smith, orderly, Scottish Women's Hospital, Salonika, on October 7. It was given in Serbian, and then translated into English. A soldier's funeral, with a soldier's guard, was given :—'Friends,—lt is a sad duty that I have to perform, to say the last adieu to a generous friend of our people ; to say it in tho name of all those whom sho came to help, arid for whom '" sho suffered death. ' Scarcely known c to many of us while living, she becomes *' now and in future glorious through ? her fate. Though many of us do not remember even the features of her „ face, we all see now her soul's face in 0 glory and greatness before us. Through p unselfish devotedness and pity for our i< pains and sufferings, .sho came to us a from her great country. She came t: to soften the hard fato of a small and most unhappy, people, stricken by God ft and by men, and she shared it unto tho last. She lost her most precious 01 good for us by the .same death which ?j every day destroys so many of our e , lives—sho eamo to help us in the f, struggle'against misery and death. But il the same merciless fate which is not yet cc satisfied with thousands and thousands di of our victims broke her gentle heart, ai too. Instead io share our glories, to U1 enjoy with us in our triumphs, she. J' shared tho sadder part, of our great , I but cruel destiny. At tho doors of our {J country, where is all what is greater p] 'yand stropgor than everyone of us 5 all

that is immortal in our single lives, all that moans soul, that is lovo and faith, and dotty, there are wo now proving tho last hard lesson, that only through utmost suffering and death we can pass to our beloved homos, where all our happiness is, I where the eternal part of our lives dwells. And so tho death of tho dear friend who died for her sympathy and duty grows to a magnificent symbol before us. In helping tho other, in fulfilling her duty, in offering oven her life for pity and love, for what is noble and godlike in us, sho returns now to the eternal homo, to tho immortal fatherland. Among those graves, through which wo must pass returning to our homes, and which for ever will remain most dear to our whole nation, are those of people who died for pure pity and lovo to us. With our extreme sacrifices, with our many deaths, we Serbians have bought your sympathies._ And it is now through deaths as this one among many others that our great friends provo their syrhpathies towards us. And this is, as it ever was, the highest stamp, tho strongest bond, between men and men, between nations and peoples. ' So mar also this sad death bo a noble bond more between our two nations, as ib is a high mark of sympathy and duty, showing to us all the right way to eternity. May God be gracious to our dear dead's soul, as she Was pitiful to our sufferings.' "