The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1914-12-03
UNITED PRESS CORRESPONDENT TELLS OF THE
''Sf1IPLOAD OF Misery AS HE VIEWS 1T
TRAVELLED WITH REFUGEES
William Phillips Smms ReCites Incidents Attendant
on the Rush of Old and Young, Women
and Children from Belgium
By WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS

Omitted Press Staff Correspondent
ON BOARD THE SALVADOR" Oct.
27.-(By mail to New York.)-This is
literally ship load of misery. We
have on board 1000 Belgian women
and babies, with sprinkling of old
men and boys bound for La Palico
where the French government is pre-
pairing to take care of them.
All about me, on the rusty deck Of
this huge iron tramp steamer, are the
wars outcasts. Each is carrying a
small busdle none much bigger than
might contain large pocket handker-
chief. The Salvador" at anrchor in
the Calais harbor sits alarmingly ap-
parently not drawing more than a
foot.
If we ever get to sea and blow
comes up we'll turn turtle as sure as
fate and / don't think many on board
would care. There isn't an ounce Of
freight aboard and no ballast; but up,
up, up the steep and very lofty ladder,
from dock to deck, a stream of poor
refugees is pouring.
Far below, as l look over the railing,
a dingy looking mob is waiting, each
member of it with paper in hand, prov
ing the holder to be Belgian and there
fore entitled to embark on this rusty
old high-out- of-the-water tramp
Back of me is a Belgian family:
Mother, two babies, grandfather and
grandmother. They have walked from
Antwerp to Calais. The two babies are
in a hamper filler with old clothes
The old folks have taken. turns at
the two ends of the stick on which
they had hung the basket holding the
babies They looked dazed, hungry,
very tired; no doubt they are all that
and more The children have the same
pinched look have seen in thousands
of babies faces in their fix, a look one
simply can not get used to see without
feeling a Tightening sensation around
the heart.
Seated on the hatch back of this fam
i1y is a row of people. I think they
are strangers to each other, but as
even members of the same family are
too stricken by the calamity to con-
verse among themselves, one can not
be sure.
One is a bareheaded woman, per-
haps not more than 22 Better dressed |
and gotten up" some, one would say
she was pretty. Now she sat staring
out over the railing at the roof of the
warehouse hundred feet away. Her
hands are open lying loosely in her
lap.
Next to her is an old man. perhaps I
65, with very scrubby, grayish whisk-
ers He, too, is staring at the ware
house roof. On his knees is bundle,
done up in a stripped material. Per-
haps it might have been pillow slip
Or part of one at some former time.
Now it holds a chisel, a claw-hammer,
4 koy-hOle saw ana CAKE VI WdA I
olus other things. An old cabinet
maker probably exiled by the war. His
arms are about the bundle; uncon-
,ciously he grips the thing as though
t were some treasure which he can
lot afford to lose.
Befuddled by the misery they have '
zone through, fatigued by their long !,
ramp afoot; their resistance weaken =
d by the remorseless onrush OF the 3
var against which it had been use q
ess to fight, these poor refugees, h
ilent, staring, humble, chilled and q
ungry crowd the corroded deck OF the
ramp and stay wherever they are put. !,