COMFORTS AT MIDNIGHT.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 24 September 1917, Page 7

COMFORTS AT MIDNIGHT.

A SOLDIER'S APPRECIATION. The New Zealand soldier is not slow to appreciate any kindness done him, in his time of need and indeed his , gratitude is often touching in its ■heartiness. From jts soldier friends the Y.M.C.A. receives many outspoken expressions of (gratitude, which amply reward its Busy .workers and put the hall mark of success on their efforts. Private Duncan McLean, in a recent enthusiastic letter from France, writes:—"Let it be widely known through the length and breadth of the fair isles of New Zealand that their Y.M.C.A. are the people who, under the able guidance of Mr Hay. are here on the spot amongst the shell s doing a great work amongst the boys both temporally and spiritually. . . .They know what is most needed. Night work is again in vogue, and very hard a*t all sorts of repair work —work which if I describe it will cause the censor to use his blue pencil. But that is where the Y.M. steps in and turns on free cocoa and biscuits. In the middle of the night- or' small hour s of the morning it is always ready ana hot for the tired, fed-up, weaTy boys on the way to their hard beds. Good old Y.M. We simply can't shake them off, so they go to Germany with us when we go." The Bureau of Finance of the Y.M.C.A. of the United' States reports that on account of the early "and unexpected rapid transfer of American ' troops to . France Association work over 1 the sea will call for over a million dollars more than was estimated in April. The thousand co-operating cities and towns were to produce five million dollars before the middle of August, and if the need s continue to expand, as they undoubtedly will, the Bureau of Finance "will raise six million dollars. The American associations have accepted the responsibility to serve their enlisted countrymen * wherever they may be, and there is every indication that they will successfully carry through this huge undertaking.