The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-07-09

allies relief committee, in aid of which the Caledonian Market fair was held. We were called together by the war office the day after the fighting in Bel
 gium began" said Mrs. Scott, some aux Hilary organization being required to ar range for the housing and treatment oi
 the wounded Belgian soldiers who were to
 be sent to England. We accepted the re- sponsibility and were told to expect 15O0
 wounded. The number was nearer 5OO0, but, amid all the horrors and confusion of the desperate situation our doctors
 brought them all safely to England in admiralty transports, and, with the aid of lord mayors and mayors of provincial cities and towns, the cases were rapidly distributed throughout the country. Under such circumstances the wounded allies relief committee came into being and from that time onward it's activities grew. Among other things at the begin ming we were invited by the war office to undertake the registration of all killed, wounded, imprisoned, or interned Belgian soldiers. Our register now contains the names of over 100000 Belgians killed at 1 the front, wounded and disabled in Eng | land, interned in Holland and imprisoned | in Germany. In the first half of 1915 early 10000 inquiries were dealt with and l at it's busiest the department hand ed l 2000 letters a day. The Belgian govern
 ment relies on the register for all mili- | tary purposes, and uses it as a basis for r the granting of pensions
 | As a fact, however, the wounded allies
 relief committee needs no introduction to Americans who partly in response to elo- quent appeals by Arnold Bennett have I contributed generously to it's funds. The committee Helps the wounded of all Brit
 aims allies. For example, it maintains an | important medical mission for Servians in 1 Corfu. It is assisting Portugal in Africa. | It keeps a home and a sanatorium for I Belfiansfi and it's caravans serve the Bel gan army in the field It dispatches am- ! balances to Russia and motor operating | theatres to Italy Throughout the war it | has maintained two hospitals in France. | Recently, at the special request of the | French government, made in view of the
 expected great allied offensive, it inaugu-
 rated at Lyons 300-bed hospital, soon | to be enlarged.
 | Tt is chiefly for this new hospital at
 Lyons,' said Mrs. Scott, when we talked l in her drawing room, some days before
 the opening of the Caleonian Market fair, that we need additional funds How they were to be raised was a question I kept asking myself. I felt it was impossible ] to appeal to our well-to-do classes, they | literally have given to their utmost. Para
 doxically one felt that the people who could best afford to help us were the working classes to whom fewer appeals have been made and many of whom, 1 through munitions making and other
 forms of war work are better off than they ever were before in their lives. | And then, one day when I happened to
 attend the regular Friday tumble sale at the Caledonian market the idea of
 using the market for big patriotic fair on the same lines suddenly popped into my head and as soon as it did I realized | that it was real brain-wave.
 KNOW CALEDONIAN MARKET Every American housewife in London 1 knows the Caledonian market" Mrs. Scott went on. Ut was originally opened, IsJbelieve, by Queen Victoria, and gets it's name from the fact that it is just off | the Caledonian road, in North London. It covers 15 acres and is a cattle market every day in the week but Friday, when | it becomes one of the greatest bargain markets of the world, and the happy hunting ground of curio hunters who make the most wonderful finds there Really and truly, between ourselves, it | is to very large extent thieves mar l ket'-the wonderful bargains being ex- plained by the fact that a good many | of the things for sale are stolen prop l erty but that is detail. Anyhow, the | Friday tumble sale is famous and at 1 tracts thousands of people, so thought | that well advertised and much bigger tumble sale for war fund would attract l thousands, too"
 Americanlike, Mrs. Scott "flew at it'' at once. First of all she sought to dis cover who owned the Caledonian market, and found 1t belonged to the city corpora