The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1904-03-06
FROM MOSCOW TO THE FRONT

Every day the station at Moscow is
besieged. Guards at the entrance try
To keep out a throng of people who
come to bid farewell 10 the regiments
ordered east.
The soldiers themselves are reused
from their stoiidity- The prospect of
war has appealed 20 them. Parting af-
fects them less closely than their rela-
tives left behind Men kiss each other
upon the cheeks in the Continental
fashion There is much gloom
There is no set hour for trains to de-
part. Regiments may wait for hours
or for days. Their time is worth moth
ing.
Small box cars. each with a tiny
stove in the middle, are drawn up in
long lines TO receive the soldiers. Some
of these. already fineed with men. have
been waiting for hours. All the engines
that could be spared from the Moscow
division have been rushed TO the far
east, and trains are crawling
At last the train moves out. It is
nearly a thousand miles to the Siberian
line-the distance from New York TO
Chicago. The troops may cover it in a
week. in two weeks: no one knows.
Sometimes. in desperate haste to meet
at the next station a westward train,
the men will be bumped about at the
/ frantic speed of thirteen miles an hour.
! Then viii ensue long waits. until the
line is clear again for the next move.
Wrecks are passed. due to haste, the
track hastily repaired. Some Of the
cars have rude benches; more are bare
/ of furniture as q cattle car.
In Continental Europe a common sign
upon a bOx-car is: Ten horses. forty
men,"
Tcheliabinsk is reached at last Be
yOnd lies the Siberian railway proper
more slightly built. already needing re-
ballasting. already warped by the de-
cay of the insufficient wooden ties and
/ by the rascality Of contractors, who
have used but half the needed rivets
/ in joining the rails. Water towers have
/ in many cases burst from frost. The
/ little stoves barely keep the mems
| blood from freezing. At times. when
/ the waits are long, they get out and
stretch their legs. or even sleep over
night in one of the "etapes" used in
ordinary times for prisoners bound for
! Siberia. The sleeping benches are alive
with vermin. and the great bare rooms
are kept at sitting heat By huge soap
stone stoves. Beds are made upon the
/ fat tops of these cOntrivances, and
! these are the posts OF choice.
Irkutsk is $3.50 miles from Moscow.
Six weeks it has taken to reach il, and
here the travellers feel that they are
approaching war. Already they have
] locked upon mysterious men caught as
spies being summarily hanged There
are contant stoppages. In spite Of
patrols mysterious accidents" occur to
the track At every bridge passed for
a thousand miles soldiers have stood
on guard IN the freezing weather.
Spring will be in the air as, early in
April the Moscow men who leave this
week spin merrily down the short run
1 from Irkutsk 20 Lake Raikai- They
, have stayed in Irlutsk endlessly
awaiting their turn. The sun-sweet-
ened air makes them feel merry after
days when the Thermometer stood at 50
! below. As the train dashes down
through the pass that leads TO the lake.
very fair in its mountain framing. they
see the ice stu unbroken except in
suspicious looking black lines. They
have heard Of these tiny black lines
across the ice. They represent distant
great crevasses, in which they have
heard that more than one segment has
been engUlfed-some plunginE through
by the trainload and never seen again.
some marching bhndly cast thirty