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Show t: Lil tin i aO FORJMDREil Low Wash Basins and Little Shower B?.tns Adapted for the Use of the Tots. CHATEAU DE3 HALLES NOW CHILDftE.TS HOSPITAL j One of the M:st Complete Establishments Es-tablishments of its Kind in France, With Jolly Playrooms and Toys to Amuse Patients, i i " ! L'p in ttie mountains, where the j snow fails early and lies deep, 30 miles ; ' from Lyons, is the little French village ! of Les Hallos--a siory bowk village, ; with its massive stone church standing ' sentinel over two long rows of trim, ; blue-gray plaster cottages. And a mile ; farther ou is the Chateau des Hallos, : where your Ked Cross lias es'tablislied , a home for 1200 sick children. j Mangini built the chateau. Man- j gini 'was the man who built the rail-, i road aloni; the Riviera and many oth- er railroads in 'ranee. And thirty odd years itiro he luilt this castle up In the. mountains for his country home. But soon after his two children died. Then he died, and when his widow followed fol-lowed him she left the chateau to the city of Lyons to be used as a hospital for children. The War's Wreckage. Then came the war. A little rivulet of the war's wreckage began to trickle iu al F.vian -"repatries," elderly men and women, children, even babies, who bail once lived ill the parts of Franca engulfed by tin.1 (iernuin tides and whom the (iennaus. linding tlieni useless, use-less, were beginning to ship back into France by way of Switzerland. Gradually Grad-ually this rivulet swelled. Soon 1.000 of these unfortunates u'ere arriving nt Evlan daily. Anr! fully half ot them were children, undernourished, thinly clad, dirty, sickly and, worse, grim, spiritless, with faces that bad forgotten how to smile. To care foi these children was the task your Red Cross al once assumed. Working with, the French aulhorities, the Red Cross secured permission to make use of the old and plumst forgotten forgot-ten Ciiauiean des Hallos up ther' tn the mountains For years the castle bud been closed. No effort had ever been made to lit It up as a hospital. Your Red Cross had to begin at the very beginning Rooms Big and Jolly. Rut what a wonderful task it has accomplished! The Chateau des Ialles, transformed into a children's hospital and rest home in furious haste -under Ihe terrible pressure of .wur needs, with little time to think twice and no time to retrieve errors, is not only one of (he most complete establishments of its kind; it Is. one of the best children's hospitals in all France. The two rooms where t he arriving children are isolated for a few .days are hig. jolly rooms just wuat is need to efface from the little ones' minds the memories of those iron days behind the German lines. The big play room is strewn with rocking horses ami wonderful smile-enticing parrots and biher toys carved by the wounded poilus. And so .you stray from room to room, and everywhere you find new evidences evi-dences of this watchful enre. And then you roach the bathrooms. This chateau was built by a man of wealth. Its plumbing was excellent, and yet It has been stripped out and replaced with little, low wash basins and little shower baths that the children can use more comfortably. That Is bow your Red Cross thinks and cares for France's children. |