Lebanese character is very necessary. Better still, each village should be distinguished by a character of its own, if that is possible...

(Here we cannot help hinting that Mrs. Tabet's house is the best example of the Lebanese style. She has gathered in her home the old Lebanese beauty and the comfort of the modern fashion. Here are the beautiful old Arab chandeliers together with electricity; there the carved wood; there the damask covers and the precious ornamented ceramic pieces, and the pictures hung with taste, confirming the beauty of those furnishings.)

Sandra Khoury shared her opinion and said: The aesthetic, artistic side and the preservation of the Lebanese village character are two very important things. And I do not think we shall lose that character if the authorities cooperate with the people. The villager cannot do without the flat roof, for many reasons known to everyone who has lived in the villages — for drying onions and figs and the many grains... And he wants it with a movable ladder that he brings down at sunset into his house, so that he may sleep in peace..

But the sanitary side is more important than that, Ellen Rihan interrupted her; every house must contain a privy and a bath inside it, and not as the case is today — "at the far end of the terrace."

There is no fear of failing to obtain the sanitary fittings, answered Najla Saab; those are settled matters. But the important thing in this whole question is to set about the work of building at once and to finish it quickly, so that when October comes, and with it the cold and

the storms, the people will all be sheltered from them and safe!

Therefore, added Ellen Rihan, the people of the village must build their village with their own hands, even if companies or committees are engaged for the designing and the building... The peasant must help to build his village, for many reasons, material and moral!

What is the Red Cross's work today, now that you have stopped the aid and the provisioning?

Najla Saab answered this question: The Red Cross can help today on the social side, offering counsel and guidance; and on the health side for a period of seven months, sending health detachments every week to all the stricken centers — and this costs more than ten thousand Lebanese lira every month...

And among the most important results of the earthquake is the creation of the emergency

committee in the Lebanese Red Cross, excellently organized and backed by sound experience and information. It also possesses today precise documents and statistics on everything that happened in this recent period, which will help it to meet all coming crises — God forbid! — with effective speed.

Nor did the members of the roundtable forget, as they turned over those touching memories in their minds, to mention with thanks and appreciation their highest example of sacrifice, noble character, and humanitarian and patriotic zeal in that painful ordeal: the First Lady of Lebanon, Mrs. Zalfa Chamoun, honorary president of the Lebanese Red Cross. She was for them like the torch, and the captain of the ship, in the depths of the recent calamity!