THE VOLUNTEER SISTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 February 1916, Page 4

THE VOLUNTEER SISTERS.

(Extract from letter of Wellington Volunteer Sister in Egypt.) '"The tea-rooms are situated in the Esbekiah Gardens, which are under the Y.M.f'.A. The tables are all outside and in the middle of the gardens the Y.M.C'.A. has a roller-skating rink, just like a large tennis court, with a stage, at one end, and along one side writing and reading tables, fitted up for the soldiers under a shelter, the side of which screens it from the rest of the gardens. At the other end is the tea place, in which we do our work. Along the fourth side of the rink are the tea tables for the men, for whom the tearooms have been started. They skate and have skating and hockey matches, and in the evening there are moving pictures, entertainments, concerts, ete. The tea-rooms are just supposed to pay for themselves, not to make anything. The soldiers come in at all times, in hundreds, from three to nine, and they make the tea their proper meal. Numbers of them say how much they enjoy seeing white women, and the ones just back from the Dardanelles especially enjoy it. It seems to be a thing they cannot see enough of. Any one who had money could do splendid work of this kind," and for several friends to combine and do it would be just the very tiling. There is no question of its not being appreciated." Miss Wilson gives a vivid picture of the way in which the soldiers thronged the place. ' She writes: "We had live or six helpers, with natives to do the washing up. but even then we were so rushed we did not know what to do. Even the crusts of bread with paste on them, to which we were finally reduced, the soldiers took willingly, and food that had been got for two days' supply at least, went iu this one day. ''Over and over again the men will come and say: 'May I shake hands with yon, Sister? You are the first white woman t" whom I have spoken for months (it might lie ten, twelve or more months, as the case might be.') Over and over again they say how splendid it is to be surrounded by their own kind and to eat proper food again, and that just to talk to us is a pleasure."