RELIEF WORK.

March 1—­Herbert C. Hoover, Chairman of the American Belgian Relief Committee, issues statement in London that the Germans have scrupulously kept their promise, given in December, not to make further requisitions of foodstuffs in the occupied zone of Belgium for use by the German Army; he says the Germans have never interfered with foodstuffs imported by the commission and that all these foodstuffs have gone to the Belgian civil population; Mr. Hoover further states that “every Belgian is today on a ration from this commission”; every State in the Union contributes to the fund for the Easter Argosy, the ship which it is planned the children of the United States will send with a cargo to Belgium in the name of Princess Marie Jose, the little daughter of the King and Queen of the Belgians; plans are made for the sending of two ships with cargoes supplied by the people of the State of New York.

March 2—­American Red Cross sends large shipments of supplies to Serbia and Germany; four American Red Cross nurses sail for Germany; Serbian Agricultural Relief Committee asks for farming implements.

March 5—­Mississippi, Ohio, and Nebraska form organizations to send relief ships; American Red Cross is sending large consignments of supplies to the American Relief Clearing House in Paris.

March 8—­Report from London states that it has just become known in Budapest that Countess Szechenyi, formerly Miss Gladys Vanderbilt, contracted smallpox while nursing in a Budapest military hospital and has been dangerously ill for a fortnight; a hospital, exclusively for the care of wounded soldiers whose cases require delicate surgical operations, is ready for work at Compiegne under the direction of Dr. Alexis Carrel of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

March 9—­In gratitude for American help, the municipal authorities of Louvain inform the American Commission for Relief in Belgium that, when Louvain is rebuilt, squares or streets will be named Washington, Wilson, and American Nation.

March 11—­American Red Cross announces plan to send two units for service with the Belgian Army.

March 12—­Philadelphians give $15,000 for establishment of a Philadelphia ward in the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris; other wards bear the names of New York, Providence, New Haven, and Buffalo.

March 14—­Letter to the British Red Cross from Sir Thomas Lipton says that typhus is threatening Serbia.

March 16—­Mrs. John Hays Hammond, National Chairman of the War Children’s Christmas Fund, has received letters from Princess Mary of England, and the Russian Ambassador to the United States, writing in behalf of the Empress of Russia, expressing thanks for the Christmas supplies sent from the United States.

March 17—­Mme. Vandervelde, wife of the Belgian Minister of State, has collected nearly $300,000 in the United States for Belgian relief, and plans to sail for Europe in a few days.