REFUGEES 163
there were over one hundred in existence, was nearly ten million.
On the northwestern front there were established for the benefit of
the refugees, as well as of the local population, 48 hospitals with
8,275 beds for infectious diseases, 117 dispensaries, 197 tea rooms,
9 children’s homes, 2 asylums for invalids, 4 disinfecting stations,
3 information bureaus, 2 clearing stations, 7 drug stores, 11 dental
clinics, 18 night shelters, and 2 burial detachments.* The number of
canteens fluctuated between 167 and 841 according to requirements.
During the brief period October, 1915—J uly, 1916, the canteens
provided refugees and the civilian population with 23,559,000
meals.” Those suffering from infectious diseases and registered at
dispensaries attached to the ‘canteens, numbered 3,685, while a total
of 10,176 were tended in the hospitals. In this way it was possible
to isolate without delay a considerable number of acute cases, principally
cholera and typhus.
The Financial Problem.
In the meantime large masses of refugees traveling in an easterly
direction had made their appearance in the interior. Here, they
found no organization whatever and there were no means of arranging
for their proper settlement in their new abodes. Nobody
knew precisely how many refugees were bound for any given province
and no one seemed to know whose business it was to look after
them and where the means were to come from for that purpose. The
zemstvos and local institutions of the Zemstvo Union asked the Central
Committee for funds, and alarming telegrams arrived from a
number of provinces, such as Penza, Tambov, Samara, Orel, Poltava,
Ekaterinoslav, Vyatka, Orenburg, Simbirsk, and others. From
some of the districts requests for funds were addressed to the Zemstvo
Union by the highest government officials, as for instance the
Governor-General of Kiev, the Governor of Chernigov, and others.
Up to August 10, the Central Committee transmitted nearly 500,
000 rubles to nine different committees, b :sides granting permission
to fifteen other committees to spend on relief the loans that had been
The exact figure is 9,868,287. Moreover 40,103 meals were served on
Dnieper steamers, Isvestia (Bulletin), No. 47, p. 86.
* Ibid., No. 28, p. 89.
' Ibid., No. 47, p. 101.
