Chapter 30

RELIEF WORK.

Feb. 2--It is planned to send a Belgian relief ship with supplies donated wholly by the people of New York State; France facilitates entry of tobacco sent by Americans as gift to French soldiers; organization is formed in New York called the War Relief Clearing House for France and Her Allies to systematize shipment of supplies.

Feb. 3--Russia permits supplies to be sent to captives, but Russian military authorities will do the distributing.

Feb. 4--Steamer Aymeric sails with cargo of food from twelve States for Belgium.

Feb. 5--Russia refuses to permit relief expeditions to minister to German and Austrian prisoners in Siberia; the United States asks that an American doctor be permitted to accompany Red Cross supplies to observe their distribution; American Commission for Relief in Belgium is sending food to some towns and villages of Northern France in hands of the Germans, where the commission's representatives have found distressing conditions.

Feb. 7--New York women plan to equip a lying-in hospital for destitute mothers of Belgium.

Feb. 10--Steamer Great City sails with supplies for the Belgians estimated to be worth $530,000, this being the most valuable cargo yet shipped; the shipment represents gifts from every State, 50,000 persons having contributed; Rockefeller Foundation is negotiating in Rumania for grain for people of Poland.

Feb. 12--American Girls' Aid Society sends apparel to France sufficient to clothe 20,000 persons.

Feb. 13--Otto H. Kahn lends his London residence for the use of soldiers and sailors who have been made blind during the war.

Feb. 14--Rockefeller Foundation reports that the situation in Belgium is without a parallel in history; Commission for Relief announces that it is possible to send money direct from United States to persons in Belgium.

Feb. 16--Queen Mary sends letter of thanks for gifts to the British-American War Relief Committee; American Red Cross sends a large consignment of supplies to Russia and Poland.

Feb. 19--London Times Fund for the sick and wounded passes the $5,000,000 mark, thought in London to be a record for a popular fund; steamer Batiscan sails with donations from thirty States; Red Cross ships seventeen automobile ambulances for various belligerents donated by students of Yale and Harvard.

Feb. 22--Sienkiewicz and Paderewski appeal through Paris newspapers for help for Poland.

Feb. 23--Rockefeller Foundation's report to Industrial Commission shows an expenditure of $1,009,000 on war relief up to Jan. 1; food, not clothes, is Belgium's need, so the Commission for Relief in Belgium announces from London office.

Feb. 24--Plans are made for American children to send a ship to be known as the "Easter Argosy--a Ship of Life and Love" with a cargo for the children of Belgium.

Feb. 25--Queen Alexandra thanks British-American War Relief Committee.

Feb. 26--The American Belgian Relief Fund is now $946,000.

Feb. 27--Doctors and nurses sail to open the French Hospital of New York in France.

THE GREAT SEA FIGHT.

By J. ROBERT FOSTER.

In my watch on deck at the turn of the night I saw the spindrift rise, And I saw by the thin moon's waning light The shine of dead men's eyes. They rose from the wave in armor bright, The men who never knew fear; They rose with their swords to their hips strapped tight, And stripped to their fighting gear.

I hauled below, but to and fro I saw the dead men glide, With never a plank their bones to tow, As the slippery seas they ride. While the bale-star burned where the mists swayed low They clasped each hand to hand, And swore an oath by the winds that blow-- They swore by the sea and land.

They swore to fight till the Judgment Day, Each night ere the cock should crow, Where the thunders boom and the lightnings play In the wrack of the battle-glow. They swore by Drake and Plymouth Bay, The men of the Good Hope's crew, By the bones that lay in fierce Biscay, And they swore by Cradock, too--

That every night, ere the dawn flamed red, For each man there should be twain Upon the ships that make their bed Where England rules the Main. They pledged--and the ghost of Nelson led-- When the last ship's gunner fell, They would man the guns--these men long dead-- And ram the charges well.

So we'll choose the night for the Great Sea Fight Nor ever give chase by day, Our compeers rise in the white moonlight, In the wash of the flying spray; And if we fall in the battle-blight, The shade of a man long dead Fights on till dawn on the sea burns bright And Victory, overhead!