England's effort : $b Letters to an American friendWard, Humphry, Mrs.
History
England's effort : $b Letters to an American friend
Ward, Humphry, Mrs.
Great Britain. Army -- Ordnance facilities; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, British; World War, 1914-1918 -- Women
The temper of the nation? In this last letter let me take some samples of
it. First--what have the rich been doing? As to money, the figures of the
income-tax, the death-duties, and the various war loans are there to show
what they have contributed to the State. The Joint War Committee of the
Red Cross and the St. John's Ambulance Association have collected--though
not, of course, from the rich only--close on 4,000,000 sterling (between
$18,000,000 and $19,000,000), and the Prince of Wales Fund nearly
6,000,000 ($30,000,000). The lavishness of English giving, indeed, in all
directions during the last two years, could hardly I think have been
outdone. A few weeks ago I walked with the Duke of Bedford through the
training and reinforcement camp, about fifteen miles from my own home in
the country, which he himself commands and which, at the outbreak of war,
he himself built without waiting for public money or War Office
contractors, to house and train recruits for the various Bedfordshire
regiments. The camp holds 1,200 men, and is ranged in a park where the
oaks--still standing--were considered too old by Oliver Cromwell's
Commissioners to furnish timber for the English Navy. Besides ample
barrack accommodation in comfortable huts, planned so as to satisfy every
demand whether of health or convenience, all the opportunities that
Aldershot offers, on a large scale, are here provided in miniature. The
model trenches with the latest improvements in plan, revetting,
gun-emplacements, sally-ports, and the rest, spread through the sandy
soil; the musketry ranges, bombing and bayonet schools are of the most
recent and efficient type. And the Duke takes a keen personal interest in
every man in training, follows his progress in camp, sees him off to the
front, and very often receives him, when wounded, in the perfectly
equipped hospital which the Duchess has established in Woburn Abbey
itself. Here the old riding-school, tennis-court, and museum, which form a
large building fronting the abbey, have been turned into wards as
attractive as bright and simple colour, space, flowers, and exquisite
cleanliness can make them. The Duchess is herself the Matron in charge,
under the War Office, keeps all the records, is up at half past five in
the morning, and spends her day in the endless doing, thinking, and
contriving that such a hospital needs. Not very far away stands another
beautiful country house, rented by Mr. and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid when they
were in England. It also is a hospital, but its owner, Lord Lucas, not a
rich man, has now given it irrevocably to the nation for the use of
disabled soldiers, together with as much land as may suffice a farm colony
chosen from among them. The beautiful hospital of 250 beds at Paignton, in
North Devon, run entirely by women of American birth now resident in Great
Britain, without any financial aid from the British Government, was
another large country house given to the service of the wounded by Mr.
Singer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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