Aid for the Red Cross

The World’s Great Benefit for the Society’s Funds Assured of Success.

EARLY TAKERS OF THE BOXES.

Chauncey M. Depew Will Preside and Edison and Tesla Will Be Present.

GREAT DOCTORS WILL TAKE PART.

Prelates and Clergymen, Veterans and Schoolboys Will Add to Attraction of the Night.

It is going to be a great night for the Red Cross Society and for everybody who goes to the Grand Central Palace on Saturday evening. All will take part in the entertainment given under the auspices of The World.

The first box was taken by William T. Wardwell, Treasurer of the Standard Oil Company, and the second by Mrs. Platt, the wife of Senator Thomas C. Platt. John P. Faure, former Commissioner of Charities, took the third box. They paid $50 each for them, fixing the price themselves. Of course, anybody who wishes to pay more for a box is at liberty to do so, and he will have the satisfaction of knowing that every penny of it will go to the Red Cross Society. The Health Exposition shares the general-admission receipts, but not the money taken in for boxes. The World bears the other expenses as a part of its contribution.

You do not have to buy a whole box if your resources are not equal to it. There are a number of box seats to be sold at prices ranging from $1 to $5, the higher-priced seats being near the presiding officer, Chauncey M. Depew.

It would be wise to subscribe for seats at once, and you can send a check to the Red Cross Editor of The World and be sure of getting them.

At this particular time, when United States troops are on the eve of entering Cuba, there could be no nobler cause than that of the Red Cross Society, which wants funds to send its nurses with the army. And the soldiers will need their services. Spanish bullets will not be the only things that will lay them low.

But even if the cause were not such an admirable one, you really cannot afford to miss this entertainment. It is worth a deal more than you will pay to see the distinguished people who will take part, not to speak of hearing what they will say.

It can be safely promised that Dr. Depew’s oration will be one of the best that he has ever delivered. And that paper by Nicola Tesla, the greatest of wonder workers, which will show how electricity shall make war a memory, is of vital interest. You can look upon that other very great man, greater than any ruler on the face of the earth, Thomas A. Edison, and listen to the golden words that will fall from his mouth.

You have heard of Dr. Jacobi, whose fame extends over two continents, Dr. Shrady, who was Gen. Grant’s physician and who is one of the foremost surgeons of the world, and of William Tod Helmuth, whose practice as a physician is said to be greater than that of any man in America, but have you ever seen them?

They will talk for you, explaining the appliances used in modern medical science, dwelling particularly upon operations in the field. And then there will be the talks of distinguished clergymen, like the Protestant Bishop Potter, the Catholic Bishop Farley, Dr. Rainsford, Dr. Greer and others.

The encampment of Grand Army veterans will attract you. They will have their tents pitched as they were during the war. They will make their beds with straw and blankets, cook coffee and post sentries. It will be a vivid picture of life of an army in the field. In keeping with this will be the ambulance drill of the cadets of Grammar School No. 87.

The members of the Red Cross Society are deeply grateful to The World for its efforts in arranging for this benefit. Yesterday it received a letter from Mrs. Bettina Hofker-Lesser, recently appointed Sister-in-Chief of the Red Cross Society by Clara Barton and whose husband, Dr. A. Monae Lesser, is at the head of the Red Cross Hospital at One Hundredth street and the Boulevard.

To the Editor of The World:

Your newspaper is doing a noble work in arranging for the benefit of the Red Cross Society at the Grand Central Palace on Saturday night. It comes at a time when the society is in need of funds to carry on its work in Cuba, work that no other organization can do. We are grateful, deeply grateful to The World. May its efforts be crowned with the success they and the cause deserve.

BETTINA HOFKER-LESSER.
Sister-in-Chief of the Red Cross Society
Red Cross Hospital, May 11.

There came yesterday a message from Miss Mary E. Wadley, manager of the Exhibit of Trained Nurses at the Health Exposition, that aroused the greatest enthusiasm. It was from Florence Nightingale, the heroine of the Crimean war, the founder of the order of nurses to succor the wounded on battle-fields. It was a letter of congratulation, voicing the writer’s deep interest in nursing and nurse-training.