Bisbee daily review., 1915-09-18
QUAKERS ARE DOING
VALIANT SERVICE IN
RESTORING FRANCE
English Workers Have Begun
Campaign in Devastated Sec
tons Where Peasants Are
Helped to Resume Their Work.

Helped to Resume Their WORK.
LONDON, Sept 1.-THE reports is
sued by the English Society of Friends
(Quakers) on their work in the devas-
tated sections of Northern France give
vivid account of the destruction and
the attempts at reconstruction.
Twelve of these reports have now
been issued, covering a wide range
of territory
The Society begins by sending out
Investigators, who are usually women
who have been trained in social work.
In accordance with their reports the
other workers follow Nurses visit
patients in their own homes, builders
erect huts for the homeless peasants,
and there is a growing department Of
agricultural relief There are four
main divisions of activity with about
125 volunteers from England and
number fro mother countries.
Imagine writes one of the work
ers, "a village in your own vicinity,
it may be your home-with some 700
houses of which $50 have been burn
ed to the ground and then you will be
able to form some idea of what this
village from which I am writing is
like. The inhabitants left in astound
ing bewilderment, hardly able to be
lieve that the Germany army was so
close, and so in the hurry and scram-
Bile to get away they left everything
behind them, innocently expecting to
find their belongings again when they
returned And so, when they returned,
a few days after the German retreat,
conceive their sorrow and chagrin on
finding their houses RACED to the
ground and all trace Of their posses
sions gone. All.their hay and crops,
cattle, rabbits, everything, burnt or
destroyed. ] admire their courage as
l see them grubbing in the ruins
searching for some lost thing, or be
einning-where would you begin TO
clear away the debris"
The secretary of the Relief Com
mittee, Miss Ruth Fry. writes: ct is
not only the material help given. The
most important aspect is the courage
raised anew in these much-tried suf-
ferers, to whom the coming of the
helpers is a very impressive sign Of
the reality of our friendship The SUI
preme evil of war is not death, but
despair. Against such despair the
Quaker fights
At first the medical side of the work
predominated At Chalons, for in
stance, a Maternity Hospital was or
canized. The following is from the
report of the work of this hospital:
Q Although we were foreigners and
strangers to Madame L., she came
away with us. It was her first baby
Her husband, a compositor in Rheims
before he was called to the colors. had
been seriously wounded four months
4 before, and since then she had had no
news at ALL She spoke of him during
the long ride back to the hospital and
she told us of the horrors of the bonn
d bardment and her six weeks sojourn
/ i'm the cellars She spoke of the Ger
mans in Rheims and said they were
/ very polite and nice to her and to her
/ friends One she had met had been
very sad and had wept over having to
I fight and leave his wife and children.
( She showed him her husbands pic
ture and he wished her good fortune
and his safe return. Her courage was
splendid. Just before a little daugh-
ter was born to her the news came
that her husband was dead Her cour-
age never failed. For my dear girl
/ want to be strong, she said"
In the later reports it is chiefly
agriculture that figures Most Of the
farm machines had been destroyed by
fre-that Is TO say, they survive, but
the iron is so soft that it bends al the
touch To replace them about eighty
moving machines We're distributed
among the villages on the cooperative
system-an innovation among the
French peasantry, and one which met
with opposition in some districts
Later reapers and binders were sim
ilarly provided for the harvest, which
; had been sowed by French women
who went into the fields Immediately