an one of the great Triage huts in
France when leave is on. We think of our last visit to one such. Three
hundred men were sleeping there that night, and 'Uncle Joe,' the
Y.M.C.A. leader, went round the bunks last thing to see them safely
tucked in. As we stood in the main hall we thought we understood what
was said of our Lord that 'when He saw the multitude He was filled with
compassion.' Scores of men were gathered around the piano, singing
rowdy choruses of the kind loved by our Tommies. The coffee queue
extended the whole length of the room, and the men had to buy their
tickets from Uncle Joe, who had a few words with each in homely
Lancashire dialect, whilst further along the counter a titled lady was
serving coffee as fast as she could pour it out. There were crowds round
the tables, reading or feeding. We noticed at one table a group of men,
one of whom was cutting up a long French loaf, another had just opened a
tin of sardines which he was sharing round, whilst a third was helping
his comrades from a tin of pears. All were on their way home on leave,
or returning to the Front, and all were merry and happy as British
Tommies almost invariably are.

Sometimes in a London hut, or it may be in the Y.M.C.A. in Paris, you
will come across one of these Tommies who is down and out. He has been
on leave and has spent or lost all his money, and is down on his luck.
It is to the Y.M.C.A. he turns. A little act of kindness, under such
circumstances, has often changed a man's whole outlook on life. Nearly
the whole of the service in the Y.M.C.A. hostels is rendered
voluntarily, and many workers who have home or business ties welcome
this opportunity of doing war service that really counts. There is a
tendency in some quarters to speak disparagingly of the voluntary
worker, but those who know, realise the enormous value of such service.
No paid workers could have been more zealous or more efficient than
those who have served voluntarily under the Red Triangle. The old
brewery in Earl Street was the first building in London to be adapted
for sleeping purposes, but the 'Euston' was the first Y.M.C.A. hostel
to be built. One of the largest is the Shakespeare Hut which was built
on the site of the proposed National Shakespeare Memorial Theatre,
kindly loaned for the purpose. The huge building by London Bridge was
lent by the city of London. Many of the huts occupy central and
important sites, as for instance, the station huts a