In Society

During the past month the Presidential Palace witnessed a great throng of people on the occasion of the annual general meeting of the Lebanese Red Cross. It was attended by His Excellency the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, and a group of ministers and deputies. The first purpose of the meeting was the election of 11 new lady members to the administrative council.

The ceremony was opened by Mrs. de Freige, president of the Red Cross, who welcomed those present and reviewed the history of the institution and its noble aims in peace and in war, saying at the last:

“The direct contact between the central committee and the twelve branches in the South, the Bekaa, Mount Lebanon, the North, and Akkar has caused the principles of the Red Cross to penetrate among the Lebanese, achieving the social cooperation that every man and woman loyal to this beloved homeland desires.”

Then Mrs. Najla Salim Saab read the society's annual report, which set out the donations received by the Lebanese Red Cross. Enthusiasm ran high, and the eagerness to give was great. His Excellency the President and his government donated ten thousand liras in aid of the society's fund.

Seventeen ladies stood for the 11 seats, and the following ladies won:
Rose Kettaneh, Georgette Hitti, Shafiqa Salam, Jamal Karam Harfush, Sylvie Trad, Afifi Majdalani, Thuraya Sahnawi, Ashraf al-Ahdab, Farida Ashqar, and Alice Homsi.

• Last month Mrs. Heneni Tarcha's term as president of the Lebanese Women's League came to an end, and the members were called to a general meeting for the purpose of electing a new president and five members of the administrative committee in place of the five whose terms had expired.

No one stood for the presidency, so it was proposed that Mrs. Heneni Tarcha's presidency be renewed — in her capacity as founder of this association, and as one who has spent six consecutive years watching over the League's two great projects: the kindergarten, and the magazine “The Woman's Voice.” She was elected president for the third time.

Attention then turned to the election of five members of the administrative committee, and the winners were Mmes:
Alice Nakkash, Sumayya al-Khazen, Nazli al-Solh, Nazik Sarkis, and Husniyya Freiha.
There followed the election of Mrs. Adal Alameddine to the League's board of trustees. It was then proposed to appoint a committee for the emigrants, on the occasion of the Emigrants' Congress to be held in Beirut, and the committee was formed of:

Mrs. Ghurra, Mrs. Zakkour, Mrs. Emily Fares Ibrahim, Mrs. Arsanios, Mrs. Khoury, Mrs. Ataya, and Miss Ghalmieh.

Miss Zahiyah Dughan then read a report on the kindergarten and expressed her satisfaction at the kindergarten's progress toward the aims laid down for it.

• In the baccalaureate section attached to the University, the literary club held a competition in the recitation of Arabic poetry. All the secondary schools of Beirut were invited to take part, and eight schools answered the invitation, half of them boys' schools and half girls'.

The result of the competition fell to the side of the fair sex: Miss Umayma Riz of the Evangelical College for Girls stood out clearly above the rest. The second prize likewise went to Miss Suad Nassouli of the Ahliah National College for Girls, and the third prize to the student Georges Braidi of the baccalaureate section of the American University.

• From Mrs. Rozani Yousef Khuzai of Kumasi — the Gold Coast — there came to us a kind word, from which we pick the following:

“Perhaps it is chance and surprise, as I believe is true in most cases, that create closeness and understanding between two distant persons, however wide the gulf of separation and however long the distances. Thus was our closeness, and our understanding of one another, bound together; and its cause was the arrival of an issue of your esteemed magazine — The Woman's Voice — at the Lebanese Club in Kumasi. The Women's Union looked through it, and could show nothing but its great admiration and appreciation for the magazine, above all those frank pages that touch directly upon woman's positions and the raising of her standing, and the splendid services it renders in the cause of humanity and of society at large.”