THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ST. GEORGE AND THE WAR.
[To THR EDITOR OF THE " SEECTATOR."] Sts,—Englishmen overseas have nobly responded to the call of the Motherland, and the numerous branches of the Royal Society of St. George, from. Yukon, on the Arctic confines of Canada, to Equatorial. Africa, the Cape, Australasia, China, Japan, and the Crown Colonies, have each and all furnished more than their fair proportional quota for Imperial defence. Some of its branches have in consequence become so depleted as to necessitate the sus- pension of their ordinary activities. Only the more elderly members and the women remain, and these are everywhere busily engaged on behalf of the various funds in connexion with the war. How many of the thousands of the Society's members have donned the universal khaki has not been ascertained; neither is it possible to estimate the amount of money contributed or raised through their instrumentality; but if the sums realized by the South Africa, Port Elizabeth Women's Branch afford any criterion, the sum total must be very considerable. The "Light- ning Fund" organized by this particular branch resulted in the handsome collection of £5,757, which was sent to Lady Jellicoe for the dependants of our gallant seamen engaged in the battle of Jutland and of those who went down with Lord Kitchener in H.M.S. ' Hampshire.' Nor was this all, for recently a draft for £940 9s. 7d. was received by the parent Society to be placed in the hands of the Admiralty for the benefit of wounded and dis- abled sailors, and was by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty accordingly allocated to "The War Pensions Statutory Committee." The ladies chiefly concerned in the raising of this large sum of money—.28,663—were the President of the Branch (Mrs. Freemantle), Mrs. Scholefleld (Hon. Secretary-Treasurer), Mrs. Christie, and Mrs. Ramsay-Denny, Englishwomen whose patriotic zeal and exertions are praiseworthy in the extreme.— I am, Sir, &c., ENGLISH:HAS.
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