In many parts of Russia hospitals are _not_ wanted. In Petrograd there are five hundred of them run by Russians alone. Then there is a fund for relief of the Poles, which is administered by Princess ----. The ambulance-car which the fund possesses is used by the Princess to take her to the theatre every night. A great deal of money has been subscribed for the benefit of the Armenians. Who knows how much this has cost the givers? yet the distribution of this large sum seems to be conducted on most haphazard lines. An open letter arrived the other day for the Mayor of Tiflis. There is no Mayor of Tiflis, so the letter was brought to Major ----. It said: "Have you received two cheques already sent? We have had no acknowledgment." There seems to be no check on the expenditure, and there is no local organisation for dispensing the relief. I don't say that it is cheating: I only say as much as I know. [Page Heading: ILL-BESTOWED CHARITY] A number of motor-ambulances were sent to Russia by some generous people in England the other day. They were inspected by Royalty before being despatched, and arrived in the care of Mr. ----. When their engines were examined it was found that they were tied together with bits of copper-wire, and even with string. None of them could be made to go, and they were returned to England. We are desperately hard up at home just now, and we are denying ourselves in order to send these charitable contributions to the richest country in the world. Gorlebeff himself (head of the Russian Red Cross Society) has L30,000 a year. Armenians are literally rolling in money, and it is common to find Armenian ladies buying hats at 250 Rs. (L25) in Tiflis. The Poles are not ruined, nor do they seem to object to German rule, which is doing more for them than Russia ever did. Tiflis people are now sending money for relief to Mesopotamia. Of the 300,000 Rs. sent by England, 70,000 Rs. have stuck to someone's fingers. In Flanders there were many people living in comfort such as they had probably never seen before, at the expense of the charitable public, and doing very little indeed all the time: cars to go about in, chauffeurs at their disposal, petrol without stint, and even their clothes (called uniforms for the nonce!) paid for. And the little half-crowns that come in to run these shows, "how hardly they are earned sometimes! with what sacrifices they are given!" A man in Flanders said to me one day: "We could lie down and roll in tobacco, and we all help ourselves to every blooming thing we want; and here is a note I found in a poor little parcel of things to-night: 'We are so sorry not to be able to send more, but money is very scarce this week.'" My own cousin brought four cars over to France, and he told me he was simply an unpaid chauffeur at the command of young officers coming in to shop at Dunkirk.