HANDS ACROSS THE SEA
floor were the headquarters for the Committee administering the War Relief Fund for Italy. The well-organized group of Christian Scientists carefully investigated hundreds of cases of destitution and misery in Rome, Florence, Genoa, Turin, Sienna and Sarzana and distributed money and comforts with much care and discrimination. On a single afternoon at headquarters in Florence as many as fifty cases were helped, each one of which had been the subject of careful consideration and investigation.
A glimpse of the tireless group that eagerly awaited their turn outside the disbursing office in Florence, through long hours on one hot September afternoon when a visitor was present, would have satisfied every contributor to the fund that the help was needed in Italy. Old men and women, young soldiers' widows with tiny babes, whose pensions, pitifully meager at the best, had not even as yet been allotted, discharged soldiers who had contracted diseases in the army, mothers of large families seeking even trifling aid, were each in turn seen and comforted and sent away rejoicing, giving voluble expressions of gratitude.
Knowing the characteristics of the Italian people, and desiring, too, to make The Mother Church Fund furnish true aid, the Committee purchased quantities of wool which it distributed to the poor to be knitted into socks and paid one lira a pair to the knitter. The socks were then sent to the soldiers of the Italian army and elicited among others the following letter:
“The Officers of the Edolo Battalion 5th Alpines, in the name of the brave Alpines.
“We heartily thank you for the most useful and most
43
