T.e M. M.S, Scharnhorst arrived here last Friday from Vladivostok en route for Trieste, carrying over 2,000 released prisoners of war, many of them returning after six years of captivity in Siberia. The men, principally natives of Hungary and' Galicia, are being repatriated under the auspices of the American War Prisoners' Committee, whose representative, Mr. R. Rosenbluth, met the steamer on her arrival, and received the cordial thanks of Major Uhlig, the senior Army officer on board, for the generous effort made by the committee in the interests of his compatriots.
In the circumstances, every inch of space on the vessel has to be used, and transport costs kept down, but the travellers expressed themselves very well pleased with the accommodation provided, making light of little inconveniences in the prospect of seeing their homes in the near future. It is true that many of them, men of position and education, will probably find themselves in circumstances vastly different from those which they left in 1914, but such is the fortune of war. The men had been able to make their way slowly across Siberia, and all had distressing tales to tell of conditions which had prevailed in their various camps. The soldiers seem to have been treated as badly under the Lsarist regime as under later adniinistrations, and latterly to have been left more or less to their own devices. The officers seem to have fared slightly better, but generally speaking the men have been sorely tried and only the most sturdy are among the survivors, Discipline on the ship is good, under the direction of a committee composed of officers and N.C.0.'s, an equality which is not be taken.
representing the Bolshevist spirit. They have seen something of the ruin of Russia, and do not seem to be enthusiastic about the spread of Bolshevist doctrines elsewhere,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.