The covering of the fields by ashes is the worst part of the disaster, for it means that the livelihood of the people is gone for an indefinite time. They are hardworking, deserving peasants, and now their crops are gone, and the soil will not bear anything for three or four years, till the ashes are assimilated. They are far too deep to be plowed in at present. There is no possible place to dump them. Every road is full, every waste space heaped up high. The Red Cross has not as yet published any bulletin or account of their work. They will do so, however, in the end. Of course they need money, and will continue to need it for months. I hope America can send them some, for they certainly deserve it. Sincerely yours, EMILY P. BISSELL. * * * * * Items from the April _Bulletin_ of the Red Cross International Committee of Geneva. The _Bulletin_ contains a report of the hospital sent to and maintained in Manchuria by the German Red Cross Society. The equipment filled 24 cars, providing for a hospital of 120 beds, a disinfecting apparatus, Röntgen plant, a bacteriological laboratory, and provisions for six months. Its personnel consisted of the Chief Surgeon, four Assistant Surgeons, two students, an administrator, a technical officer, 12 sister nurses and nine lay nurses. A large part of the personnel spoke Russian. Dr. Brentano, the Chief Surgeon, who considered the collaboration of feminine service of inestimable value, exacted that the sister nurses should belong to strictly religious orders, and that the character of the lay nurses should be strongly vouched for. At the termination of the war, in returning to their country, 59 Japanese officers and 1721 soldiers who had been prisoners in Russia passed through Germany. For those who had been sick or wounded the German Red Cross turned the cars into veritable hospitals. At Berlin, upon order of the Emperor and Empress, the German Red Cross prepared a reception for them. Tea, cigarettes and some Japanese papers were distributed among them. At Hamburg the transportation of the sick and wounded to the ship was quickly accomplished by the Red Cross sanitary columns, and those who were well taken by a Red Cross detachment to see the city. * * * * * In France a movement is on foot to organize a volunteer automobile corps for the transportation of wounded. With the excellent roads that exist in that country, the wounded could often be transported in a few hours by automobiles to the reserve hospitals—thirty or forty miles from the front—instead of by the slow process of transportation by ambulance. It is proposed to organize a volunteer corps of chauffeurs, including women, who are experts in the running of these machines. * * * * *