The FReeper Foxhole Remembers The YMCA Goes to War (1861-1865) - July 18th, 2005

Civil War Times Magazine | February 2001 | Stephen D. Lutz

[SAMWolf]

Soon after the Battle of Manassas, the YMCA chapter in Charleston asked the chapter in Richmond about sending aid for the wounded and sick. Charleston wanted Ys throughout the South to send supplies to the front, and they asked that the Richmond chapter oversee collection and distribution. Richmond agreed, and the building that housed the Richmond Y was turned into a supply depot.

The efforts of the Southern Ys continued for quite some time after the guns went silent at Manassas. In mid-August, three private homes in Richmond were turned into hospitals that could accommodate 50 patients at a time. The attending physicians were YMCA members. The hospitals remained open for more than three months at no cost to the new Confederate government.



The Southern Ys found other ways to help Confederate troops as the war continued. In 1862, the association founded a lodge where food, shelter, and other necessities and comforts would be provided to transient soldiers. By the end of that year, 4,700 soldiers had stopped at the facility. By 1864, the Y chapter in Charlottesville, Virginia, was making wooden legs to distribute free of charge to disabled soldiers.

Religious outreach became the signature of the Y's wartime efforts in the South. Y volunteers there moved from Confederate camp to camp, spreading a hopeful message among a war-weary rank and file. Usually referred to as Christian Associations, the volunteer groups played a key role in what turned into great religious revivals in the Confederate army.

Southern Y chapters did their share of useful work during the war, but their effort was hampered by the Confederates' natural aversion to central control. Like the Southern Ys, Northern Ys responded to the aftermath of the Battle of Manassas. The situation spawned discussions on how to better coordinate aid activities. One of the more promising suggestions to come from all of this talk came from Vincent Coyler, an influential artist and future president of the Y. Coyler said the Y should hold a conference to organize the association's volunteer efforts. His idea was accepted, and on November 14, 1861, delegates from various Y chapters met in New York City. That day, the United States Christian Commission was founded.


"Incidents of the United States Christian Commission" was written and compiled by Rev. Edward P. Smith, field secretary for the commission. This volume has its origin in the peculiarity of the war in the United States against the Confederate States-not of the forces arrayed against each other but of the forces of Christianity developed and exemplified amid the carnage of battle.

Caring for wounded troops was a need that sparked the Y's involvement in wartime services, but the association had other large-scale efforts, too. One was helping prisoners of war in their dire predicament. The Y tried to give these men hope. The association apparently had some success at Johnson's Island Prison off Sandusky, Ohio. Wrote the Rev. R.W. Cridlin:

A Confederate captive arrived following the Gettysburg battles. He found no organized spiritual activities. "Rampant profanity, gambling, slacking" and other "unchristian habits" were in wide practice. Initially met with indifference, the new arrival began prayer meetings and Bible classes. Groups grew in number and frequency.

Shortly after that, Captain W.B. Haygood, a prisoner from Company C of the 44th Georgia, wrote: "We have a Y.M.C.A., Masonic meetings, etc. I attend all of these and fill out the rest of my time by reading the Bible."



On October 31, 1863, a letter signed by 48 Rebel officers on the island was sent to the Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia. The YMCA-U.S. Christian Commission "make no difference or discrimination between Confederate or Federal...," the letter read. "We trust, that the authorities at Richmond and elsewhere will treat any said delegates...with kindness justly due them and grant them speedy return to their Christian work."

By war's end, the amount of service and supplies the YMCA had given to soldiers was staggering, especially in the North. Members of the Washington, D.C., chapter traveled a total of 5,240 miles, making 181 visits, holding 1,498 services, and registering 587 converts. Boston formed an Army Committee on December 2, 1861, to organize similar efforts. St. Louis formed one on December 10 and became a major supply distribution point along the Mississippi River. The Y in Louisville, Kentucky, accounted for 170 sermons, 273 letters written for soldiers, and 66,495 sheets of writing paper and envelopes distributed.

After the war, as feelings of sectional animosity faded, the Northern and Southern chapters of the Y began to reestablish their bonds. As the New Yorkers wrote in their 1861 letter to the Southern chapters: "We affirm, it is not that we love you less, but that we love our country, our whole country, more." That letter went on to say, "by the help of God," the United States will be reunited.

The nation had been battered, ripped, and torn in two, but now it was reunited. So was the association that had helped the North and South survive the harrowing four-year ordeal that was the Civil War--the YMCA.

[SAMWolf]

Beginnings of the YMCA in London

The Young Men's Christian Association was founded in London, England, on June 6, 1844, in response to unhealthy social conditions arising in the big cities at the end of the Industrial Revolution (roughly 1750 to 1850). Growth of the railroads and centralization of commerce and industry brought many rural young men who needed jobs into cities like London. They worked 10 to 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Far from home and family, these young men often lived at the workplace. They slept crowded into rooms over the company's shop, a location thought to be safer than London's tenements and streets. Outside the shop things were bad—open sewers, pickpockets, thugs, beggars, drunks, lovers for hire and abandoned children running wild by the thousands.


George Williams

George Williams, born on a farm in 1821, came to London 20 years later as a sales assistant in a draper's shop, a forerunner of today's department store. He and a group of fellow drapers organized the first YMCA to substitute Bible study and prayer for life on the streets. By 1851 there were 24 Ys in Great Britain, with a combined membership of 2,700. That same year the Y arrived in North America: It was established in Montreal on November 25, and in Boston on December 29.

The idea proved popular everywhere. In 1853, the first YMCA for African Americans was founded in Washington, D.C., by Anthony Bowen, a freed slave. The next year the first international convention was held in Paris. At the time there were 397 separate Ys in seven nations, with 30,369 members total.


The first rooms (on the fourth floor) of the Boston YMCA, the first YMCA in the United States, circa 1850s

The YMCA idea, which began among evangelicals, was unusual because it crossed the rigid lines that separated all the different churches and social classes in England in those days. This openness was a trait that would lead eventually to including in YMCAs all men, women and children, regardless of race, religion or nationality. Also, its target of meeting social need in the community was dear from the start.

George Williams was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1894 for his YMCA work and buried in 1905 under the floor of St. Paul's Cathedral among that nation's heroes and statesmen. A large stained glass window in Westminster Abbey, complete with a red triangle, is dedicated to YMCAs, to Sir George and to Y work during the first World War.

Additional Sources:

www.ymca.net

[SAMWolf]

The YMCA Leads the Way in Civil War Relief

TheYMCA had existed in America for only 10 years when the Civil War separated the country into North and South. The New York and Chicago YMCAs raised troops for the North, while several YMCAs in the South raised troops as well. In 1861, 15 Northern YMCAs came together to create the “U.S.Christian Commission”for the relief of soldiers on the battlefield.

A conference with President Abraham Lincoln led to the full-scale recruitment of YMCA volunteers, eventually numbering 5,000, who served as surgeons,nurses and chaplains.These volunteers distributed medical supplies,food and clothing,and even taught soldiers to read and write.

YMCA volunteers wrote more than 90,000 letters for the sick and wounded, and distributed $1,000 per week in stamps for soldiers’letters home. TheYMCA’s Christian Commission also published a “Record of the Federal Dead” which helped many bereaved families find their fallen sons .Forty-three Christian Commission volunteers,including three women, lost their lives during service.

American poet Walt Whitman served in the Y’s Christian Commission and called his service,“the greatest privilege and satisfaction ...and most profound lesson of my life.”

One Confederate YMCA began during the war in a federal prison camp at Johnson’s Island, Ohio. However,only two southernYMCAs survived the War Between the States: the Richmond (Va.) and Charleston (S.C.) YMCAs.

Although it would take several decades forYMCAs to regain their former strength in both the North and South, the work of the Y during the war had brought the movement great prestige among both Federal and Confederate troops.

[SAMWolf]

Showcasing America's finest, and those who betray them!

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Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

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UPDATED THROUGH APRIL 2004



The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul

Click on Hagar for
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[snippy_about_it]

"FALL IN" to the FReeper Foxhole!



Good Monday Morning Everyone.

If you want to be added to our ping list, let us know.

[A Jovial Cad]

Good morning SAM, snippy, everyone.

Another excellent, informative article--I was unaware of the depth of the influence of the "Y" during the Civil War.

It resonates to this day in my household: I have four kids enrolled in YMCA sports right now. Their legacy continues (I'm obligated to mention under full-disclosure ethics that my oldest daughter starts a "Y" basketball tournament tomorrow evening, and her proud father will be in attendance).

They do good work, and I appreciated learning about a part of their history I'd never heard about.

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Snippy.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Freeper Foxhole.

[alfa6]

Village People Bump for a fascinating read about the "Y"

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[Humal]

Good morning, SAM

Very interesting thread this morning. I had no idea the Y is this old, or that it formed along Northern & Southern lines in America. Any idea how it got it funds to support $1,000 each week in stamps for POW's letters during the War Between the States? That's a large amount by today's standards, much less back then.

[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[GailA]

Good morning ALL.

[Professional Engineer]

Good morning ladies. Flag-o-Gram.

[Valin]

On This Day In History


Birthdates which occurred on June 18:
1681 Feofan Prokopovich theologian, archbishop of Novgorod, westernizer
1799 William Lassell discoverer (satellites of Uranus & Neptune)
1809 Sylvanus William Godon, Commander (Union Navy), died in 1879
1839 William Henry Seward Jr, Brig General (Union volunteers), died in 1920
1877 James Montgomery Flagg illustrator "I want you" recruiting poster
1886 George Mallory England, mountain climber ("because it is there")
1901 Jeanette MacDonald actress/singer (When I'm Calling You)
1904 Keye Luke Canton China, actor (Kung Fu - Master Po)
1906 Kay Kyser Rocky Mount NC, orch leader (Kay Kyser's Kollege)
1908 Bud Collyer NYC, TV emcee (Beat the Clock, To Tell the Truth)
1910 E.G. Marshall actor (Defenders, Nixon, Absolute Power)
1913 Sammy Cahn lyricist (3 Coins in a Fountain)
1913 Sylvia Porter financial writer (Sylvia Porter's Money Book)
1915 Red Adair, oilman (fought oil fires)
1917 Richard Boone LA Calif, actor (Paladin-Have Gun Will Travel,Big Jake-John Fain (gang leader))
1926 Tom Wicker columnist (NY Times)
1937 John D (Jay) Rockefeller IV (Sen-III)
1937 Vitali M Zholobov cosmonaut (Soyuz 21)
1937 Hunter S. Thompson (d.2005), Gonzo Journalist
1939 Lou Brock one-time baseball stolen base leader (St Louis Cards)
1942 Paul McCartney rocker, Beatles, writes silly love songs
1942 Rogert Ebert Urbana Ill, film critic (Siskel & Ebert at the Movies)
1952 Carol Kane Cleveland Ohio, actress (Dog Day Afternoon, Simka-Taxi)
1963 Bruce Smith NFL defensive end (Buffalo Bills)

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Deaths which occurred on June 18:
0741 Leo III de Isaurier, Byzantine Emperor (717-41), dies
1291 Alfonso III, King of Aragon (1285-91), dies
1629 Piet Heyn, lt-admiral (Spanish silver fleet), dies in battle at 51
1669 Abraham Crijnssen, Swiss admiral, conquered Suriname, dies

1792 John Paul Jones (American naval hero) dies in Paris age 45. (Body preserved in rum in case the American government wished him back. In 1905 his body was transported to the US and placed in a crypt in Annapolis)

1853 Branko Radicevic, Serbian poet (1st Serbian Uprising), dies
1880 John Sutter, US colonist (gold discovered on his land), dies at 77
1916 Helmuth J L von Moltke, German chief general of staff, dies at 67
1916 Max Immelmann, German pilot (WW I), killed
1936 Maxim Gorki, [Alexei M Peshkov], Russian writer (Mother), dies at 68
1942 John Kubris, Czech resistance fighter, killed Heydrich, dies at 28
1945 Colonel Roberts, commandant 22nd regiment marines, dies in battle
1945 Simon B Buckner, US lt-gen/commandant of 10th Army, dies in action
1959 Ethel Barrymore, [Blythe], actress (None but the lonely), dies at 79
1974 Georgi Zhukov Russian Marshal (WW II), dies at 78
1975 Faisal Ibn Mussed Abdul Aziz Saudi prince, beheaded in Riyadh shopping center parking lot for killing his uncle the king
1982 Curt Jurgens actor, dies of an acute heart attack at 66
1991 Joan Caulfield actress (My Favorite Husband), dies of cancer at 69
2000 Sen. Paul Coverdell (Republican, Georgia) died in Atlanta at age 61

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GWOT Casualties

Iraq
18-Jul-2003 2 | US: 1 | UK: 1 | Other: 0
UK Captain James Linton Az Zubayr - Basrah Non-hostile - illness - sudden collapse
US Specialist Joel L. Bertoldie Fallujah - Anbar Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack


Afghanistan
A Good Day

http://icasualties.org/oif/
Data research by Pat Kneisler
Designed and maintained by Michael White
//////////
Go here and I'll stop nagging.
http://www.taps.org/
(subtle hint SEND MONEY)

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On this day...
0064AD The Great Fire of Rome begins.
0860 Swedish Vikings attack Constantinople
1155 Pope Adrian IV crowns Frederick I Barbarossa Roman-German Emperor
1178 Proposed time of origin of lunar crater Giordano Bruno
5 Canterbury monks report explosion on the moon (only such observation known)
1536 Authority of the pope declared void in England
1580 States of Utrecht forbid catholic worship
1583 Richard Martin of London takes out 1st life insurance policy, on William Gibbons. The premium was œ383
1682 William Penn found Philadelphia
1716 A decree orders all Jews expelled from Brussels
1778 British Redcoats evacuate Phila

1812 War of 1812 begins as US declares war against Britain
1814 British capture Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin
1815 Battle of Waterloo; Napoleon defeated by Wellington & Blucher

1822 Part of US-Canadian boundary determined
1822 Slave revolt leaders Denmark Vesey and Peter Poyas arrested in SC
1861 Union and Confederate troops skirmish at Blackburn's Ford, Virginia, (prelude to the Battle of Bull Run)/First Manassas)
1863 After long neglect, Confederates hurriedly fortify Vicksburg
1864 At Petersburg, Grant ends 4 days of assaults
1870 Pontifical infallibility proclaimed at the Vatican Council. (Proclaims as dogma that the Pope when speaking ex cathedra can make no mistake in solemn declarations of what must be believed in matters of faith and morals.)
1872 Woman's Sufferage Convention held at Merchantile Liberty Hall
1873 Susan B Anthony fined $100 for attempting to vote for President
1879 W H Richardson, patents the children's carriage
1898 Amusement pier opens, Atlantic City, NJ
1925 Hitler publishes "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle).
1903 1st transcontinental auto trip begins in SF; arrives NY 3-mo later (Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?)
1934 US Highway planning surveys nationwide authorized
1936 1st bicycle traffic court in America established, Racine, WI
1936 The Spanish Civil War begins
1938 Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan arrives in Ireland. He had left NY for Calif.
1940 Gen Charles de Gaulle on BBC tells French to defy nazi occupiers
1940 1st successful helicopter flight was made at Stratford, Ct
1940 German occupiers slaughter cattle, pigs and chickens
1940 Winston Churchill urges perseverance so that future generations would remember that "this was their finest hour"
(http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=418)
1941 SS troops drowned 40 Jews in Dvina River in Belorussia
1942 Bernard W Robinson, becomes 1st black ensign in US Navy
1942 German Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe, the first jet-propelled aircraft to fly in combat, made its first flight
1942 Eric Nessler of France stays aloft in a glider for 38h21m
1943 SS Police in Amsterdam sentence for 12 resistance fighter to death (Jewish, communists, homosexuality) at the census bureau
1943 US Navy airship K-74 shot down by anti-aircraft fire from a German U-boat
1944 U.S. troops capture Saint-Lo, France, ending the battle of the hedgerows
1945 William Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) Brit radio traitor charged with treason
1947 British seize the "Exodus 1947" ship of Jewish immigrants to Palestine.
1948 National Security Council authorizes covert operations for 1st time
1948 UN Commission on Human Rights adopts Intl Decl of Human Rights
1953 Egypt proclaimed a republic, General Neguib becomes president
1956 Last of foreign troops leaves Egypt
1957 John Diefenbacker (C) takes office as PM of Canada
1959 1st telecast transmitted from England to US
1963 3,000 blacks boycot Boston public school
1968 Supreme Court bans racial discrimination in sale & rental of housing
1968 Intel incorporated


1969 A car driven by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., plunged off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island near Martha's Vineyard. His passenger, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne, died


1972 US Supreme Court, 5-3, confirms lower court rulings upholding baseball's exemption from antitrust laws
1973 NCAA makes urine testing mandatory for participants
1976 NBA & ABA agree to merge
1977 Billy Martin & Reggie Jackson get into a dug out altercation
1977 Space Shuttle test model "Enterprise" carries a crew aloft for 1st time, It was fixed to a modified Boeing 747
1979 Pres Carter and Leonid I Brezhnev sign SALT 2 treaty
1980 C Shoemaker discovers asteroid #2891 McGetchin
1980 Mrs Shakuntala Devi mentally multiplies 2 13-digit #s in 28 sec
1981 Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart retires (replaced by Sandra Day O'Connor, 1st woman on high court)
1982 Voting Rights Act of 1965 extended by Senate by 85-8 vote
1983 7th Shuttle Mission-Challenger 2 launched-Sally Ride 1st US woman
1983 IRA's Joseph Doherty arrested in NYC
1984 Walter F. Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination in San Francisco
1984 Perth Observatory discovers asteroid #3541

1988 Abu Nidal terrorists killed 9 on the City of Poros cruise ship

1989 Comet Churyunov-Gerasimenko at perihelion
1989 Curtis Strange wins his 2nd US golf open
1991 Pres Zachary Taylors body is exhumed to test how he died
1991 SF Giant pitcher Dave Dravecky's cancerous left arm is amputated
1994 In Buenos Aires a terrorist attack killed 86 (96) people at the city’s Jewish Center, the Argentine Israelite Mutual Aid Society (AMIA). Some 300 people were injured.
1997 The Southern Baptist Convention called for a boycott of the Walt Disney Co., protesting what the convention called its gay-friendly policies.
1999 David Cone NY Yankees pitchs a perfect game against the Montreal Expos
2000 Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open by a record 15 strokes.
2002 Largest grasshopper invasion in 50 years hits western US states. Nebraska hardest hit.
2002 Greek police capture Alexandros Giotopoulos (58), the alleged head of the November 17 terror group
2004 Gunmen angry over Yasser Arafat's overhaul of his security forces burned down Palestinian Authority offices in Gaza

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Egypt : Evacuation Day (1956)
US : Father's Day (Sunday)
Antibigot Day
International Railroad Day
National Caviar Day- something's fishy here
National Dream Work Month

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Religious Observances
RC : Commemoration of SS Mark & Marcellianus, martyrs
RC : Commemoration of St Ephrem, confessor, doctor
Ang : Commem of Bernard Mizeki, catechist, martyr in Rhodesia

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Religious History
1464 Pius II led a brief 'crusade' into Italy, against the Turks. However, he soon became ill and died, before the rest of his allies arrived. Soon after, the three-centuries-old 'crusades mentality' among European Christians came to an end.
1781 The first Baptist church established in Kentucky was organized at Elizabethtown. (Kentucky was first visited by Baptist missionaries in 1772 when Squire Boone, brother of explorer Daniel Boone, began exploring the eastern Kentucky regions.)
1819 Birth of Samuel Longfellow, an American clergyman who composed the words to the hymn, 'Father, Give Thy Benediction.'
1830 Birth of Elizabeth Cecilia Clephane, an orphaned Scottish poet who penned two of the most haunting hymns in the English language: 'Beneath the Cross of Jesus' and 'The Ninety and Nine.'
1906 Birth of Gordon Lindsay, missions pioneer. In 1948 Lindsay and he wife Freda founded Christ for the Nations, an interdenominational foreign missions support agency.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

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Hippo, Believed Among Oldest, Turns 54

Associated Press

EVANSVILLE, Ind. -- A hippopotamus dined on fruit and juices frozen into a giant confection during a party celebrating the 3,500-pound animal's 54th birthday.

Hundreds of visitors ate birthday cake Saturday at the Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden while Donna the hippo consumed her frozen fruit.
Zoo keeper John W. Stuteville said Donna is considered one of the world's oldest living Nile hippos. She has already outlived her mate and all eight of their offspring.
Stuteville said that in the wild, hippos usually live to be only 30 to 45 years old, he said.
Arthritis, which afflicts Donna, usually brings them down because they carry too much weight on their short stubby legs and knees.

Stuteville attributes Donna's longevity to the care she has received at Mesker and to her surroundings, including inclines she must climb out of her enclosure's pools -- a design that keeps her active.
Mesker obtained Donna from a zoo in Memphis in 1954, three years after she was born.
For a while, she had a mate, Kley, but he died when he was about 30 years old. They produced eight offspring, all which also are dead, Stuteville said.

He greets the hippo each morning with a variety of food that usually includes two oranges, a tomato, a sweet potato, an apple and two bananas.
"I have a banana also, and usually give her half of it," he said.

Donna also gets a daily dose of vitamins and medication for her arthritis. She also eats about three gallons of pellitized grain along with corn on the cob and apples.

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Thought for the day :
"You grow up the day you have your first real laugh - at yourself."
Ethel Barrymore

[U S Army EOD]

I wonder if they had a singing group with all in different uniforms?

[Valin]

Shameless Plug
On This Day In History "Their Finest Hour"
The Churchill Centre ^ | 7/18/40 | Winston Churchill
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1445239/posts
/Shameless Plug

[SAMWolf]

I lose. :-(

I bet Snippy that Valin would be the first to mention the Village People.

[Valin]

SOME people are sicker than others. I won't mention any (alfa6) names, cause that would be wrong.

[w_over_w]

Morning Glory Folks~

Interesting read about the Y. That's some rich history and it's sad that the mission to do the work of Christ had to be divided by politics. Some of the most vile and vindictive words that I have ever witnessed were communicated by the family of God against each other . . . and some no further away than the FR Religion Thread.

The Richmond letter blamed the "distorting medium of the press" for many of the misunderstandings between the sides.

Always has . . . always will. Talk about an organization that has Satan as it's chief editor.

[SAMWolf]

LOL! Admit it, you just didn't get in fast enough. ;-)