Description

[003548] Long, James. Rapport De La Repartition Des Secours Faite Par La Societe Anglaise Des Amis (Quakers) Aux Victimes Innocentes De La Guerre En France (1870-1871) Precede Esquisse De L’origine, De L’organisation, Des Principes et Des Progres De Cette Societe. Paris: Adolphe Laine, 1872. First Edition. 4to. Hardback. Good+. [3], 4-68pp, original decorative cloth, title in gilt within ornate frame to upper cover, with corner pieces in blind.

Rubbed to extremities, corners lightly bumped, small black mark to centre of upper cover, endpapers browned, label of ‘The Friends Meeting House Clevdon’ to front pastedown and previous owner’s name (John Frank – one of the members of the ‘Comite General de Angleterre’) to front free endpaper, but otherwise internally fairly bright and clean. French text.

The “first official Friends War Victims Relief Committee (FWVRC) was set up in 1870, following the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War … Their work fell into three phases. Firstly, following the siege of the town of Metz, they provided emergency famine relief, and later experimented with the new-fangled steam ploughing in order to provide urgently needed help with planting the next harvest. The second, less successful stage was in working class districts of Paris following the armistice in 1871, where they found a similar situation to Metz, but on a much larger scale. Here they had money and food to distribute, but no local organisation to work with. The final field of operation was in the Loire valley. Here they became involved with a huge operation to sow 25 thousand hectares of land with oats, barley and potatoes, bringing in 3 thousand tons of seed corn via French ports. Towards the end of this operation, James Long, recognising problems associated with a lack of milk, imported in addition 3 bulls, 235 cows, 152 calves, 37 goats and 13 kids. A bull was provided to each arrondissement and a cow to each commune, their horns branded with the word ‘QUAKRES’” (From quakersintheworld)