HANDS ACROSS THE SEA
soldiers' wives in France were receiving only twenty-five cents a day for adults and ten cents for each child, and this class of the needy would very soon have swallowed up the fund. Therefore, the Committee endeavored to find out the misères cachées, those who had no means whatever and who were often of the educated classes whose natural delicacy debarred them from making their needs known.
Scores of interesting cases could be cited, where the fund came to the assistance of persons in distress and helped them over a trying period. Many artists who found themselves suddenly stranded were aided. A well-known Paris artist brought to the attention of the Committee a number of such persons whose condition was really pitiable. Two Americans, for instance, were enabled to return to their home when they found themselves without means of livelihood in France. Another who was in the depths of discouragement and poverty was given assistance from the fund, held an exhibition of his pictures and found a ready sale for his work from that time on.
To teachers, students and professors who were deprived of their employment by the outbreak of the war much needed help was given.
Cooperating with a Protestant clergyman the Committee was able to extend aid to a number of Protestant families who were in dire need.
A little Paris street urchin who was trying to support a younger sister, and who was literally without a cent, was taken in overnight by one member of the Committee, aided financially by the fund and helped to secure a position.
An American nurse who had married a French
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