Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 160, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1910 — Red Cross Supplies. [ARTICLE]

Red Cross Supplies.

The first organized work of women in a relief corps was led by Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War of 1855.. So unaccustomed were people to that service at the time that it called out some curious comment. Writing of “Chinese” Gordon, Doctor Butler tells in his recent book, “Ten Great and Good Men,” how the boys at Cambridge met the call upon them for hospital stores. One day a letter came suddenly from the war office, telling us that any warm clothes for the invalids at Scutari would be prized by Miss Florence Nightingale. At once in every college a committee was extemporized of leading undergraduates, charged to collect presents of flannel trousers, “blazers,” rugs, greatcoats, furs, even sealskins. In a few hours box after box was filled with these treasures, and all the boxes were kindly and gratuitously packed for us by the leading upholsterer of the town, his foreman simply remarking to me in a tone which General Gordon would have enjoyed* “A nice consignment for a lady, sir.”