The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-12-03
IRWIN s. COBB TELLS
 OF WAR SUFFERING
Descibes Non Combstant's Plight In Belgium, France
 Germany and England


 $. Cobb of The Saturday Evening Post to the American Red Cross, to be used In bringing home to Americans urg- ent need for relief in the cOunt.les af- Tected by the great war
 By IRWIN s. 0oBB.
 Recently I have been in four Of the countries concerned in the present war-Be1g1un1, France. Germany and E.n gland was also in Holland, hav- ing traversed it from end to end with in a week after the fall of Antwerp, when every road conningsl1p out of the south was HIled with Belgian refugees
 In Belgium saw this:
 Houaglsss, men, women and chill dren by thousands and hundreds Of fhousands. Many of them had been prosperous few had been wealthy. practically all had been conf fortab1e. Now, with scarcely an exception they stood all upon one common plane Of misery. They had lost their homes, their farms, their workshops, their livIngss and their means of making hvinga.
 a1ong Wfnd-sNept, rain-washed roads fleeing from burning and devastated Villages. I saw them sleeping in open fields upon the miry earth with no cover and nd shelter. saw them herded together in the towns and cft- fes to V hicn many of them ultimate ly fled, existing God alone knows how. saw then1-raggeds furtive scare. prow1ng in the shattered ruins of their homes. seeking sal wage where there was no salvage to be found. II saw them < living like the beasts Of the field, upon such things as the beasts of the field would reject
 saw them standing in long lines waiting for their poor share of the dole of a charity which already, was nearly exhausted- saw their towns. when hardly one stone stood upon another saw their aband oned farm lands. where the hafvests rot ted in the futrows and the fruit hung 1n1ldew@d and unEakhered upon the trsess saw their cities where trade was dead and credit was a thing which no longer existed saw them staggering from weariness and from the weakness Of hunger. saw all these sights repeated and mu1apIied but not once did see a man or wo- man or even a child that rept or cried out.
 If the Belgian soldiers won the worlds admirati ion by the resistance which they made against treMendous- ly overpuwerIug numbers. the people Of Belgiuln-t11e families Of their sol diers should have the worlds admi- ration and pity for the cour ages the patience and the foTtitlde they have
 
 fliction too do1orous for any words to describes too terrible for any irhag1n- alton to picture.
 Tn France saw pastoral land overrun by so1diers and racked by war until 4k saemed tffe very earth would cry out for mercy. saw a country literally stripped Of it's men in order that the regiments might be filled. saw women hourly striving to do the ordained work Of their
 
 hourly piecing togeth CT the jared and broken fragments of their lives. saw countless Villages turned into smoking, filthy, iI1-sme11fng heaps Of ruins. saw schools that were con- rerted into nospita1s and factories changed into barracks.
 abandcned and the shops that were bare of customers, the shopkeepers standing before empty sf4a1Fes look Ing bankruptcy in the face. saw the unbuffed dead lying between bat tie Hness where for weeks they had haps months to come, they would continue to nes and saw the graves of countless numbers of other dead Who were so hurrfedIy and careless 5 ly buried that their limbs n places profruded through the soil, poisoning the air with hideous smells and giv- ing abundant promise of the pesfiI- encve which must surely follow saw districts noted for their fecun- dity on the raw edge of famine, and people pfoxerbiAl for their light heartedness who had forgptten how to smile.
 n asrmany eaw innumeabie men. rnaimsd ana tnufflated in every conceivable fashion saw these streaK1s of wounded poS1rsns lJu<s1r two days I saw trains bearing IA GOO wounded men pAsafnE through one town saw people of all classes undergoing privations and enduring hardsnfps in order that the forces at the front might have food and sup plies. saw thousands of women wearing widows weeds. and tllous- ands of children Who had been or
 saw great hosts of prisoners of war on their way to prison camps, where in the very nature Of things they must forego all hope of having for months, and perhaps years those small creature comforts which make fife endnfabIe to a civilized human being saw them, crs1sted with dirt, worn with incredible exertforis. alive with crawling vermin, their l1n- iforns already in tatters, and their broken shoes falling off their feet,
 On the day before quit German sefl---sa1e war being then less than three months old-I counted in the course of a short ride through the City of Aix-la- ChapeIIe two convaIes- cent soldiers who were totally blind. three who had lost an arm, and one, boy of IS or thereabout, who had lost both arms. How many. men less badly injured I saw in that afternoon do not knovFs hesitate even to try to estimate, the total figure for fear might be accused of exaggeration.
 Tn Holland T saw the people Of an already crowded country wrestling valorousiy with the problem of striv- ing to feed and house and care for the enormous numbers of pennaIess refu- gees who had come out of Belgium. saw Worn-out groups of peasants huddIed on railroad platforms ana along the railroad tracks, too weary to stir another step.