The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-07-23 00:00:00

GOING GAILY TO THE WAR.

The train In which I (correspnwient of Daily Telegraph)
left Faris on Friday night was crowded to sudocation ; and
Si least one halt cif is occupants consisted of young Germans
hurry inn homewards to assume (hr ir positions in the nntionsl
army. Every cetera), of the tipper and middle classes of
sec •eiy was represented in the throng of gallant young fel-
lows gathered together In the terminn, of the IS orthet n
Itoh-
way. There were young gentlemen of faintly mostly 0110-
year volunteers or sunalterns of Land wehr', who had been
travelling for their amusement ; thee were bankers' and nor-
chants' clerks, sons of well-to-do burgesses, who had already
served their military apprenticeship and were abroad on
unlimited leave ; there were shopmen, waiters, and
skillet artisans all flockin g to their stantha Is as
enthusiastically awl gale as if their mciii tostetti
of costing them the sacrifice of their bread-svinniog
occupations, were a commercial operation of the most re-
munew De character. As for the contingent remeinner"
of einath on the battle held or in the hospital tent, that did
not seem to &snip their cheerfulness in tire least. Although
thn y were easily disiinguith side from the French and Belgian
passengers that made up the rest of the train's living freight,
I noticed that, even to Iroe another, none of them uttered a
word of their native language. As I strolled past the
carriages In search of a place, I heard them chatting merrily
tosieiher in French, and even it, English ; tint not a syllable
of German reached my ears until we had crowd the Belgian
frontier. At Erquelinen, where we were all turned cut of our
carriages to undergo Custom-house perquisiti,ms, there was a
grand explosion of Teutonic gutturals, and a general shaking
of hends, emphaticdly congratulatory. We had weeded out
the French, and but for the presence of a few stray Belgians
arid Dutchmen, the refreshment-room of the station might
have I,en a German K angina or Turnverein, judging by the
utterances of its denizens. Too stout youths, who had
shared my compartment with me from Farm, ant who,
when I had at the commencement of the journey addressed
them in German, hid replied signidc,ntly in French, came
Up to are with a peace nflnrin.; it Bavarian l• lager," and
apologised for their apparent discourtesy in not
having responded to the accents of the Fatherland.
"You see' said one, °we were so sunless, to join our
regiments that see wi.hed, above all things, to avoid pny
difficulty or row that might lines stepped its on the road.
So we agreed to speak nothing but French and not to ad.ird
airy ground (or suspicion that we might *be Germans. The
French soil was burning our feet—oe witnessed the shame-
ml exceeses of last right, and acre anxious to get home as
fast as me could, in order to serve our country. If we had
let out tlietwe were Prim/ails, we might have got into some
ugly quarrel that would have detained us; so we spoke
French ; hitt that is all over now, at least for a time, until
we receipts the frontier in a very ttliterent costume from this!"
pointing to his travelling suit.