Strict Economy, Or Rations

From the Whitby Gazette, 12th October 1917.

STRICT ECONOMY, OR RATIONS.
Eat Less Bread.
Coffee Instead of Tea.

The present position of the problem of national food supply is that compulsory rationing is the only alternative to further rigorous economy of food by all classes of the people.

Inquiries at the Ministry of Food showed that if compulsory rationing were decided on, the system of sugar rationing which is to come into force at the end of the year will probably be the basis of the compulsory scheme.  "The nucleus of the organisation for carrying it through already exists in the load Food Control Committees," it was stated.

“'It was calculated originally that it would take three mouths to set up a completed scheme of rationing.  That is about the time the sugar scheme will have taken.

“Present food supplies may seem sufficient excepting in two or three instances, but it is not so much the present as the future which demands attention and compels a greater economy forthwith. In the case of bread, notwithstanding the cheapening of the loaf, we must all remember how long our stocks of breadstuffs have to last.  Everybody must eat less bread.

"Bacon is short now, and may remain so for two or three months yet, when larger supplies will probably arrive from America.  There is a shortage of tea, relief from which will come as the heavier importations which are expected begin to arrive.  In the mean-time people can economise with existing stocks drinking a greater proportion of coffee, which just now is plentiful.

“Meat is ample for present wants, but here again economy should be practised for the sake of the future.  Indeed, there is no foodstuff in which the nation ought not to economise, seeing that so large a bulk of its food must be brought over-seas and that tonnage is so scarce.  Only by economy in eating and by saving all the food possible will compulsory rationing be avoided."

Please Knit Socks

From the Brecon County Times, 4th October 1917

WAR CLOTHING DEPOT-
SOCKS!  PLEASE!  SOCKS!

Miss deWinton hopes all Breconshire knitters will at once get out their pins and begin to knit socks.  There is plenty of wool at the depot.  Please make socks 13 inches in leg when finished and 11 inches foot. 

Miss deWinton hears on all sides that socks and again socks, hand-knitted, are the real need of our Battalions of South Wales Borderers in France.

3,000 men all want socks. 

So please! Knit Socks! And please don't waste the wool -- it is very expensive!

A Shortage of Woollen Things

From the Manchester Guardian, 27th September 1917.

COMFORTS FOR THE TROOPS.
A SHORTAGE OF WOOLLEN THINGS.

The annual meeting of the Lancashire War Comforts Association was held yesterday in Manchester, with Sir Daniels McCabe in the chair.  During the year the Association has sent 350,000 gifts to men on active service and to military hospitals.  There are 92 Lancashire battalions under the care of the Association for the provision of comforts.

Mr. J. Duthie, the Assistant Director General of Voluntary Organisations, attended the meeting and gave an account of the steps taken by the Director General to ensure a proper distribution of the hospital requisites and comforts for soldiers that are being provided by the voluntary organisations throughout the country.  There are 255 county and borough associations, managed by local committees.  It was found, Mr. Duthie said, that as the armies increased and regiments were moved from one field of operations to another the method of supplying comforts through regimental associations became in most cases quite inadequate, and therefore the Director General established at each front a comforts “pool,” controlled by the military forwarding officer.  These “pools” received a steady flow of comforts, which were issued on indents from commanding officers, and a prompt, equal, and regular distribution was obtained.  Regimental associations were credited on behalf of their particular units with the whole of the contributions they sent to the “pool.”

The department distributed approximately 1,200,000 articles monthly, three-fourths being surgical dressings and hospital garments and one-fourth comforts for the troops in the field.  In addition large quantities of luxuries had been distributed, including 80,000,000 cigarettes.  Fifteen per cent of the total output had gone to our Allies.  The position at the present time was that the supply of surgical dressings was sufficient to meet the demand.  Hospital garments were required, and the supply of knitted articles was very much short of the anticipated demand of the next few months.

Comforts For 1917-18

From The Times, 25th September 1917.

COMFORTS FOR 1917-18.

KNITTERS AND THEIR WORK.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.

Sir,—I am very grateful for 10,999 good comforts for the troops sent me in answer to my letter on summer knitting.  I am not perturbed by Hephzibah's apt yet chastening dictum, “much cry and little wool.”  Every post tells me that only a proportion of the things knitted from my patterns comes my way.  The housemaid’s brother-in-law and the laundryman's nephew upset my figures, but the Army is served just as well by these and other deserving warriors being supplied direct.  Friends of this industry may like to know that the total amount of comforts received to date is 83,337, of which just about half are sweaters.

Now, Sir, may I save the Post Office, the public, the paper interest, and myself much wasted energy by answering here a few daily breakfast-table conundrums: —

“Why doesn’t the Government supply the things if they are really needed?”  Now, old subscriber, our men form the best equipped armies ever put into the field in the course of history, but that is not to say that it is for the Government to dress them up like White Knights to meet every possible emergency.  The extras (the comforts, that is) are to be supplied as wanted by you, and it is to be your pride to do this ungrudgingly as it is mine to stick on the stamps—while I think of it I might have a few more of these sent me now.   When you come to think of it, the technical use of the word “comfort” is an addition to the vocabulary of the war, and it is instinctively a good one—though it sounds oddly when applied to mouth organs.  The fact is the human mind is so constituted that in times of very special stress and trouble the little extra personal comforts to which one is attached bulk very large indeed.  I know of one distinguished explorer who always wears light gloves in the primeval forest, and I remember that for three months on the Upper Amazon I had a clean handkerchief every day.  (It was the same handkerchief though.)  There is then this intimate personal side to comforts, there is further the “very grateful sense of being remembered at home even by those who never saw us” (there. Sir, I have put it in just as you wrote to me), and there is the larger issue that a good comfort has often saved a good man's life.

“Will you please let me know to whom these things go?  Do you distribute them yourself?”  I did once.  I look back to the bad days of wet camps, blue uniforms, pneumonia, mud, and flurry, when one rushed about giving first-aid, so to speak, to the comfortless, of any old thing, and I still treasure the letters and receipts of the winter 1914.  Those days seem a long way off now and, so far as comforts are concerned, the Government seems to have beaten our friends over the way at their own pet game of organization.  Besides the time-honoured regimental associations, a central “pool of comforts” has been created for the vast army of “nobody’s children” —labour companies, machine-gun units, trench mortar batteries, whose numbers form the most astonishing feature of the armies of to-day.  From this pool every commanding officer is authorized to draw exactly what he wants for his men from the base depots on all the fronts.  The mechanism is there to perfection, but it is for us to see that it is kept working top speed, full measure, pressed down and flowing over.

“I like to knit what is most useful; what comforts are most needed?”  Madam, to-day, September 25, 1917, we want every single hall-marked comfort we can get.  Special needs may emerge later in the year, but what is wanted now is a vast store of gloves, helmets, mittens, mufflers, socks, and sweaters for the commanding officers to draw on according to their need.  So for the present you really have your choice.

“I should be glad to help; but where can I get wool at a reasonable price?”  Well, the wool is a difficulty; perhaps it may help if I say that recognized associations obtain wool at the Government price from any of the D.G.V.O.'s depots throughout the country, on the understanding that it is returned in the form of knitted comforts for the central pool.  In case of difficulty I could probably give some small measure of help in the matter.

I generally have some one class of helpers to thank, but to-day I must ask in one sentence all schoolboys, maids, centenarians, nuns, and leading stokers, who have recently abetted me, to believe that the men are very grateful.

What is wanted, then, is a continuous supply of comforts to be sent throughout the winter, either to the D.G.V.O.’s depots throughout the country or to the London depot at 45, Horseferry-road, S.W.1.  I will gladly acknowledge any addressed to me there.  I should add that easily knitted printed patterns are on hand here at 8, King’s Bench Walk, Inner Temple, E.C.4, for any ladies who like to write for them.  In particular there are some entertaining addenda to the literature of the sock.

Yours faithfully.
JOHN PENOYRE.
8, King’s Bench Walk, Inner Temple, E.C.4

Winter Work For The Women Who Knit

From the Yorkshire Evening Post, 10th September 1917.

WOOLLEN COMFORTS FOR OUR SOLDIERS.
WINTER WORK FOR THE WOMEN WHO KNIT.

There was a touch of winter in the air this morning. It was slight, but the first fog served as a reminder that the time of falling leaver and chilly days is fast approaching. It is reminder. also, or ought to be, of the need of warm knitted comforts for our soldiers. Sir Edward Ward, the Director General of Voluntary Organisations, appeals to all who can knit to make as many knitted comforts as possible, especially socks, mufflers, mittens, helmets and jerseys.

Inquiries made to-day at the depot in Park Row of the Leeds Lady Mayoress's Committee show that a marked decline in the admirable knitting craze has taken place during the summer. That, of course, is quite natural, but there is an evident need for renewed activities if winter supplies are to prove anything like adequate. The demand is insatiable, and the only question is whether the supply can meet it in any substantial degree. Leeds alone has sent out and continues to send hundreds of thousands of knitted garments, and just as many more could be placed with great advantage now.

Working parties of ladies gather together in all parts of Leeds, and at places as distant as Hellifield and Malton, to contribute to the stocks despatched from the city.  In addition, a much appreciated source of supply is the good housewife who buys a little wool and gives what leisure she has to knitting. The greatly increased price of wool is believed to have affected this source of comforts, for it costs 7s. a pound now, and a pound does not go very far.  It is too scarce a commodity to supply freely to the thousands who would knit something if they could afford the wool.  Organised working parties are often supplied in that way, and the quality of work they send in is excellent.

Funds are as welcome as socks, because donations secure wool, which is the raw material of the working parties.  Ladies who have taken an active part in the furnishing of supplies may be interested in the careful system of distribution adopted at the Front.  There Sir Edward Ward has a great depot, known as "The Comforts Pool," to which battalion officers apply on be-half of their men.  Often the requisition sent in is very modest in comparison to the real needs of the battalion.  At the "Pool" the consignment is made up and despatched to the officer in command, who supervises the distribution.

This system prevents any dumping of big supplies at one spot and a shortage at another. Care is taken that every article reaches a man who needs it.

Hospital Bags

From The Times, August 31st, 1917.

BAGS FOR THE WOUNDED.

RESPONSE TO LADY SMITH-DORRIEN'S APPEAL.

The response to the appeal which appeared in The Times of Tuesday for Lady Smith-Dorrien's Hospital Bag Fund (headquarters, 26, Pont-street, S.W.1.) has been very satisfactory and gratitude is expressed to the many readers who have sent money and orders.  Owing to the holidays and other causes there was a shortage of 30,000 bags when an extra demand for 10,000 a month, in addition to their usual supply, came from the Assistant-Director of Medical Services in France, bringing the number in arrear up to 40,000.  Promises to meet the greater part of this shortage have been received within the last three days, the number of letters being nearly 3,000.  Many of them contained donations, but most were orders, and all day long Lady Smith-Dorrien and her voluntary helpers have been trying to cope with them.

"People are helping us splendidly," said Lady Smith-Dorrien last evening as she cut up bales of bright chintz in lengths to meet the day's orders, "and if they will only keep it up, we shall be able to meet all the shortages.  The stuff is the big difficulty;  we want it in thousands of yards and it is difficult to get enough and to get it quickly.  Some ladies have been using chintz curtains which they did not require after changing house, washing them first, of course, as everything for the wounded must be scrupulously clean.  Some very big promises have come and every one seems to realize that we are coping with the needs of the wounded on every front."

Amongst, the letters was one from a big firm offering to have a number of bags made; another was an appeal from a lady belonging to a well-known county family to farmers' families and cottagers to help her with work and promising to supply a certain portion of the material; another was from a man whose health and age did not allow him to go to the front and who spent part of his time in munitions work and in what was left of his day wished to make bags.  He is not the only man on Lady Smith-Dorrien's working list.  There is one old gentleman who has already made thousands, cutting them out on the billiard table.  The letters from mothers are always the most moving. Many of them say they know what the men in hospital think of the bags, and send their orders or donations with some little personal touch telling where and when their boys fought and were wounded.

Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien pointed out yesterday that one of the great advantages of the bags was that pay-sheets (the loss of which meant delay in getting pay) were far less frequently lost when the wounded man had a bag for his possessions.  A pattern bag and directions will be sent on application and stamps should if possible be enclosed, as the cost of postage is becoming increasingly heavy.

2 Million Hospital Bags

From The Times, 28th August, 1917.

2,000,000 HOSPITAL BAGS. 

LADY SMITH-DORRIEN'S WORK FOR THE WOUNDED. 

At first sight a cretonne bag with its flowery design seems too feminine a possession to be associated with the war, yet since April, 1915, over two million of these little bags have been sent out by Lady Smith-Dorrien to the clearing stations, the hospitals at the front, and the hospital ships. Their purpose is to safeguard the valuables of the officers and men admitted to the clearing stations. Yesterday, at 26, Pont-street, the headquarters of the Hospital Bag Fund, there were 20 bales waiting for the parcel-post collector. They were nearly all "standing orders," and were urgently needed at the casualty clearing stations. The usual demand is for 100,000 a month but 10,000 extra have been now asked for by the Director of Medical Services in France, and it is for this reason that Lady Smith-Dorrien is busy speeding up her helpers, of whom there are over 80,000 on the carefully kept files.

What is now a great and business-like undertaking, with branches and centres in every part of England, in Scotland and Ireland, in America, Canada, Spain, Trinidad, Jamaica, and the most out-of-the-way places, started in quite a simple way. A military nurse, known to Lady Smith-Dorrien in Aldershot, wrote to her from the front in the early days of the war saying that the men's possessions were emptied out of their pockets under their beds at the clearing stations and frequently got lost, and the nurses were often blamed for the loss. So Lady Smith-Dorrien made a couple of hundred bags and sent them out to her. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, then in command of the Second Army, was much struck by the idea, and asked his Surgeon-General if they would be useful to him. The reply was a request to "send out 50,000 as quickly as possible." Then Sir Alfred Keogh approached Lady Smith-Dorrien and asked her to undertake supplies for the whole of the fighting forces. The work had been carried on at her own house, but it became necessary to move, and Lady Susan Gordon-Gilmour lent 5, Belgrave-place. When that house was sold Mr. Cox, of Cox's Bank, lent 26, Pont-street, where the work is now carried on with the minimum of expense and the aid of 14 efficient voluntary workers. The biggest item of expense is the hessian for packing.

PLAIN BAGS THAT GET LOST.

The bags are every colour of the rainbow, but coloured they must be, and with flowers—roses for preference. This has become apparent as little incidents in the distribution came to the knowledge of headquarters. A wounded man was heard grumbling as he looked at a useful stout holland bag that held his little treasures and compared it with a flowered one proudly displayed by his companion in the next bed. "He's an Australian, that's why he got a bag with roses on it," he was saying; but was satisfied by the gift of an even more brilliantly coloured one. On one of the hospital ships where there was a distribution of bags, some plain and some flowered, it was found that the plain ones mysteriously disappeared through the portholes and the "losers" applied for others. But the men are not the only ones who delight in colours; two young subalterns, home on sick leave, called at 26, Pont-street, last week to see the bags en masse, and explained with some diffidence that theirs had meant a good deal to them, having kept all their valuables intact and were so cheering after the drabness of khaki everywhere. "They reminded us of the cushions and covers at home," they said.
Yesterday the post brought a letter enclosing 10s. for materials. The sender was the mother of a boy killed two years ago, and she sent it in memory of a little chintz bag that meant a great deal to her. "He was shot through the head and never recovered consciousness," she wrote, "but having about his neck a small bag with his permanent address they sent me many little treasures, and above all a diary containing his notes since the first day of the war. This is the greatest treasure I could have, and I am sure without the little bag it would never have been sent to me."  Many letters like this find their way to 26, Pont-street. The men never give the bags back, and an attempt to meet the shortage by collecting them at the home hospitals would be deeply resented.

On the roll of helpers are the names of duchesses, busy women in the suburbs, eager school girls, and the myriad workers at the surgical aid societies. Beside each one's name in the files is the record of the number of bags she has made and the intervals at which she has sent them. Elderly ladies are wonderful workers, but some of them have an inveterate love of embroidering something on each bag. One bag picked up in an ambulance train and sent to headquarters "for luck" by the finder has a woolly black cat with red and white and blue ribbons on it.

Lady Smith-Dorrien buys the chintz in bales, getting 50,000 yards at a time. Anyone sending 7s. 4d. can obtain sufficient cretonne, tape, and labels for 30 bags, carriage free. Bags, when finished, should measure 12 by 14in. They can be made, of course, of unbleached calico, or any new strong washing material, but cretonne is preferred by the wounded. A sample bag is always sent to show the correct method of making. It is suggested that people who have not time to make bags should send money, as there are many workers who can give the time for making, but who cannot afford to give cash. Four thousand bags a day are needed.