A Girls' "Help One Another " Club - The Small Beginning of a Great Work - A Society without Fees or Regulations - Its Manifold Activities - How the Kindly Instincts of Girlhood are Utilised

A widely-spread society that has done much to help girls is the "Forget-Me-Not " Club. Like many other institutions, it had a very small beginning.

About six years ago the editress of "Forget-Me-Not" (the weekly girls' paper which has given its name to the club) made a tentative effort through her pages to find friends for lonely girls who from force of circumstances had few or no friends of their own age.

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The Beginning Of The Work

For it was as a correspondence club only that the " Forget-me-not " started.

To-day its membership is world-wide. It owns ninety-three hostels, scattered all over the United Kingdom, kept by ardent club members, who make the hostels what they profess to be - " Homes away from home - to their fellow members. Besides these there are twenty " Forget-me-not' tea-shops and a hundred and forty club-rooms.

The club-rooms are generously lent by members for weekly meetings - guests merely paying a very small sum for tea and refreshments. In connection with them are numberless whist-drives and dances, which are arranged in the winter, whilst picnics and rambles make Saturday afternoons something to be looked forward to by club members.

In this unique club there are no fees, no regulations - except the ordinary ones dictated by politeness and common-sense - and only one rule, the club motto, " Help one another."

Absolutely on their own initiative, the "Forget-Me-Not" girls started a Christmas "bundle," to aid the invalids and poorer members of the club.

Last year the " bundle " contained nearly two thousand garments, a free-will offering of which the club has reason to be proud. In the same way members of the club started an " invalid fund," and as " many a mickle makes a muckle," numberless poor, brave things have received timely help.

A Friendship Club.

In calling the " Forget-me-not" a "friendship club," one is using no pretty sounding, idle phrase. The girls undoubtedly regard the founder as a very real friend, and truly the bond that unites the whole club is a triumphant contradiction to the saying that women are not clubable.

"We are just one awfully large family, all eager to rejoice in the roses or pick out the thorns from one another's paths," the editress said lately, and with truth.

In the atmosphere of friendship and good feeling, kindly deeds follow as a matter of course, and get themselves done without any of the forms and ceremonies that attend and hamper so many excellent institutions. To a recent gathering organised in London by some of the members, enthusiastic supporters travelled from all over the kingdom. Such is the keen fellowship of the members.

Not long since the hostess of one of the best attended club-rooms was asked - apropos to some of the girls' kindly deeds - who was on the charitable committee ?

"We don't need a committee, because we haven't anything with such an odious name as charity," the hostess rather brusquely retorted. And then she grew kind again,, and explained that if any club member heard of the illness or trouble of a fellow-member, she invariably acquainted the editress - unless she herself could go and see her, or get someone to go.

' If I hear about anyone I just say, ' Oh, girls, So-and-so's ill. Who is going to cheer her up ? ' And always half a dozen dears volunteer ! " the lady finished.

The Club Organ

In the pages each week devoted to the club use in "Forget-Me-Not" members can learn all the doings of the club, and, still quite free of charge, are able to advertise their work, or obtain situations. No trade advertisement is, of course, given.

So many members produce exquisite lace and embroidery, that the club contemplates a shop of its own some day, supplied and managed entirely by Club girls.

And who are the " Forget-me-not" girls ? In answer to the question, the founder once jokingly replied, " Everyone - from a duchess to a dairymaid ! " The duchess is yet to come, but the peerage is not unrepresented, and the list ranges (socially) downwards through the professions to every grade of woman's work.

As members, it goes without saying, all are equal, but when a girl writes to the editress after joining the club, and asks for a friend, infinite pains are taken to find one for her whose tastes and surroundings are likely to make her a congenial companion.

One of the great benefits of membership to a girl in this excellent club is that, no matter into what quarter of the globe fate may lead her, it is almost always possible for her to find a friend awaiting her.

It needs no words to tell what this means to a girl in a strange country, and so hospitable are Colonial club members that, more often than not, the shelter of a home is extended to the young emigrant until she can look round her.