“Fortunately, there is a sewing machine agency here, and the Mayor of the town is of the right sort. He placed a room in the Municipio at my disposal, and an alderman—or whatever corresponds to alderman—who speaks some English, selected the women for me, and I pay them a franc and a half a day. We now have sixty-eight employed, in three different places. No ready-made garments could be purchased in the town, and the need for clothing was extreme. I soon used up my own money and what I could collect from people at the hotel, but, fortunately, Bayard Cutting, Jr., came on Wednesday, and liked the work so much that he gave me $600 from the relief funds to pay wages, and has had me appointed the Red Cross representative here. “I have persuaded the Mayor to start relief work for the men, road building or what not, he to furnish the tools and oversight, and we (the American Red Cross) will pay the wages. We begin tomorrow. In short, I am organizing all I can on the good Charity Organization Society plan of making the able-bodied needy work for what they get. “My personal impression of the situation is that the worst is yet to come, when the temporary relief ceases. “I shall never forget the horrors I have seen and heard, and I was not at Messina!” DR. METCALF AT MESSINA. Dr. Francis Metcalf, formerly of the United States Army, who, during the Spanish War was a surgeon on the U. S. A. Hospital Ship _Relief_, in a personal letter written January 15th from Capii to Surgeon-General Torney, U. S. A., says: [Illustration: EMBARKING THE INJURED.] [Illustration: DR. METCALF AT MESSINA.] “Of course, I volunteered immediately to go to Reggio and Messina and stated my former service on the _Relief_. I was accepted and was the only American there, excepting a couple of correspondents and the vice-consul. To avoid red tape and the questioning of orders I stuck the old insignia (the Red Cross) on a riding suit. Technically I suppose that violated the proprieties, but it wasn’t much of a time for technicalities and it avoided a lot of palaver. At any rate, I didn’t discredit the corps of which you are the head.