TRINIDAD I THEN AND NOW. 



281 



Shortly after this institution was started it was 

 put to a severe test. The frightful calamities of the 6th 

 May, 1902 by which the islands of Martinique and St. 

 Vincent were devastated and the town of St. Pierre 

 in Martinique was wiped out of existence at one fell 

 swoop by the eruption of Mount Pelee, where every 

 living soul in that ill-fated town — except one, and he a 

 prisoner in gaol — perished and the surrounding coun- 

 try together with the neighbouring island of St. 

 Vincent — whose Soufriere Mountain also burst into 

 eruption — was almost denuded and their inhabitants 

 brought to the verge of starvation. These dreadful 

 visitations called forth the benevolence of the patrons 

 of this young and struggling 1 ■ Home Industries 

 Association " and they courageously and generously 

 helped both islands by money, and the work of their 

 hands — which was more precious still, — to relieve 

 many of the sufferers. The ladies of this institution 

 rose nobly to the call upon their time and industry ; 

 they worked willing^ and many poor destitute 

 women, refugees from these islands, had cause to bless 

 them ; but memory of kind deeds ungrudgingly and 

 unsparingly rendered is often short-lived, let us hope 

 it was not so in these cases. 



This deserving institution is now in a fairly 

 flourishing condition ; its associates have increased, 

 and it now employs four ladies of good education, 

 courteous and pleasing manners, address and obliging 

 disposition, one as manager and the others as assis- 

 tants, all of whom are engaged in attending to the 

 wants of its patrons by exhibiting and disposing of 



