For the present, France has all the men she can use. Just as it is worse than useless to provide an army with a great number of guns unless they can be kept' constantly supplied with shells and men to work them, so it is inadvisable to call up more soldiers than can be fed, clothed and equipped. The French policy is to bring up reserves by degrees, so as not to encumber the front line and the transport services, which, under this system, continue to work well. the only exception being the army postal service, and even in this there is some improvement The young men of the 1914 class are reported to be very eager and coming on much faster than re-fruits usually do, The artillery re-fruits are especially keen, fired, as they are, by the accounts of the execution done by the famous 75- millimetre gun. Some of them are using guns that saw service at the battle of the Marne and show the dents of shell and shrapnel bullets—marks which serve as a constant reminder of what the class will shortly be called upon to do.
Victims of the War.
Amid the mass of po and privation created in Paris by the war, there is one peculiarly urgent and pathetic form of distress ths of the Belgian refugees. The French have had their attention very fully and quite naturally taken up by the claims of their own wounded and poor, and it is only within the last few days that any attempt has been made in Paris to centralize and ce-ordinate the hitherto sporadic forms of relief for Belgian refugees. One of the difficulties is that many of these unfortunate people belong to the middle class and have been in the habit of helping others rather than having to ask for help themselves. Nothing short of absolute starvation 5 to ask even for the ies of life, and they have not had time to accommodate themselves to a new and extremely trying situation. In Paris at the Present time there are scores, perhaps hundreds, of Belgian professional men, engineers, lawyers. architects, writers, artists and skilled workers, all reduced to the direst straits through no fault of their own. Many of them, too, have to endure very serious mental suffering through the absence news of near relatives still in Belgium, Typical Cases, A typical case is that of a tailor who, before the war broke out, had an excellent business in Brussels and was earning a comfortable livelihood for his family of six. Now he is existing in a fireless attic in Paris, trying to pick up odd jobs at his trade, in which he is an expert, and without news of his wife and children, who are still in Brussels. He cannot find regular employment, for the simple reason that no one is buying new clothes now, and the heads of those hon see that keep orien have to turn their own personal skill to account instead of hiring others. Mr. Kivline in one of his poems once summed up in a few words the feelings of the man compelled by circumstances to live by work far below his capacities" Troop sergeant major and carry your letter"—but the commissionaire was very much better off than the killed Belgian craftsman in his cheerless garret.
As another instance of the hideous contrast between the past and the present for Belgians, there is the case of M. Fonson, the author who has delighted countless thousands of people with his play "Lo Manage de Mademoiselle Beulemans," one of the cleverest pictures of middle-class life ever put on the stage. M. Fonson joined the army, was wounded and is now an exile, without news of his family, who are in Brussels and whom he has no prospect of seeing until the enemy is driven out. When he has recovered, he will return to his regiment. The fate of another family, consisting of a mother and her son, is peculiarly sad. The son was spending his holidays in Holland when the war broke out, He was never able to return to Belgium, His mother escaped with other refugees to Brest, where she succumbed to exhaustion and anxiety about a fortnight ago. A pathetic letter from her son, addressed to her, has just been received in Paris. Neither mother nor son knew what fate had befallen the other.
Work, not Charity.
Fortunately there are kind people in Paris who are helping the refugees, but organized effort, without red-tape, is greatly needed. Employment, and not charity, is the invariable demand of these unfortunate people. One young Belgian, an engineer, has been housed and fed by a poor concierge, and his burning desire is to earn money so that he can repay her. The pro-Prictor of a restaurant, who is already feeding refugees, offers to take two more, adding, with charming delicacy. that they can come in and take their meals I'ke regular customers by the month, so that his own waiters will not know that these Belgians are his guests.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.