The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-12-04
SUFFERING
aINGLEs WITH RIBALDRY AT RUS
 SIAN FRONT.
For Days Without Food.-Red Cross Fur nishes RatiOns on Firing Lines. May Ask Aid of the
 Church.

The London Telegraph's St. Petersburg correspondent sends lurid pictures from the front. written at Haroin. where the troops are stopped to rest and to pre- pare for the more serious work of war. He writes:
 ''vodka. cards. and coarse pleasures are the preparations that most make"
 .Drunken soldiers" General Velkoff de- clares in his order of the day, 'are met on every hand. and at every turn of the streets. as well as at the railway station. Many insolent and disobedient soldiers have been court -martialed. Russian correspondent then fills in the generals sketch. writing:
 q had scarcely quilted the train at Lao- yang when the wounded began to arrive Gradually the number of moaning and bleeding soldiers grew in volUme till their cries deadened the din of the station. More and more the atmosphere became saturated with the peculiar smell of blood. known only on the battlefield.
 Jest While Men Are Dying.
 But this melancholy picture had no herring effect on the group of elegant, dan dified Cossack officers who had just arrived from St. Petersburg Five paces from the dying and dead they sat. merrily drinking champagne and flavoring 1t with obscene tests.
 "only in war are such contrasts possible. Here men cease to wear masks and show theuselves as they are. You note the ar rival of officers from the front, lean and wasted by hunger and hardship, and cheek by fowl with these you witness the orgies of half drunken men. faultlessly dressed. You hear the pop of the champagne bottles and the laughs that greet the ribald 1ests and the babble of painted women. who even at this supreme moment try to wheedie the tipsy officers out of their last rubles."
 Commissariat Breaks Down.
 The commissariat, The Daily Telegraph's correspondent proceeds to say, is said to be better than during the Turkish campaign. but judging from private letters from of- ficers and the revelations of correspondents 1t could hardly be worse. A correspondent of The viedmosti tells the following incl dent:
 "For three days we had nothing to eat,' said a soldier to the correspondent.
 "Here take your fill, replied the corre- spondent.
 "T can not eat here.'
 "why not?'
 ".'This officer with me is worse than my self
 "'welI. call him. too
 "He won't come. He is ashamed; but if you will let me take him food he will be grateful
 Red Cross Feeds Soldiers.
 A Russian officer writes: Tt is the Red Cross societies who are succorins the wounded who frequently save food for the soldiers in active service"
 An officer of the Red Cross writes:
 '"rhe troops at the front are suffering hor- rihly for lack of victuals and clothing. Ths Red Cross distributed bread. tea and timed meats to its soldiers in battle. and their boots and overooats came from the same source. not from the commisariat."
 Accounts written by Russian correspond ents of the ghastly sufferings of the wound ed are almost too painful to print. Crowds of wounded have to drag themselves sixty five miles. and even then are unable to se- cure proper treatment The semi-official
 Journal at St. Petersburg prints the folio'