Evening star., 1914-09-29
Sacking of House So Methodi-
cal That Gibson Calls It
Highway Robbery.
BURNING OF THE CITY
SYSTEMATICALLY DONE
German Officers Looted Home Of
Valuables, Carrying Them of in
Carriage, He Was Informed.

vain, Belgium, is given by Prof.
e. ellison of the University of Lou
vain in a letter to the Belgian minis
tar Of justice, Harry Carton de Wharf.
one Of the Belgian high commissioners
who recently presented a statement of
Belgium's. case to President Wilson.
The letter says:
Il enter the city, coming from Ter
vueren. Beginning at Berthem, see
numerous burnt and umbling houses;
tho nearer you come to the gloomy
ana silent city. tn e more their number
pass through the Saint Esprit street,
the 'Saint-Jacques square and Brus-
sells street.. where only few houses
are in ruins, although most of them
are sacked and pillaged
AT the Sept Coins Louvain reveals
itself to my eyes, like luminous pan
Drama in the glade of the forest. The
center OF the city is smoking heap
of ruins. Houses are caved in: moth
ing remains but smoking ruins and a
mass OF brick. 1t Is veritable Pom
pen. An oppressive silence Is every
where. At the windows of cellars I
see frightened faces. and at the street
corners Prussian sentinels, sordid, i'm
movable and silent.
In the center stand the walls of st
Peter now a grinning silhouette. roof
ana oeifry gone. the walls blackened
ana caVed in. In front stands the
.oeei os VINE. dominating every
thing and almost intact
Library and Treasures Gone.
Further on. the remains of Les
Halles, entirely destroyed except for
the arcade Of big pillars of the Sale
des Pas Perdus. The library and tts
treasures are entirely gone.
Entering ST. Peters by the Rue de
Mahnes. ind what was the big bell
among the ruins. The vaults are for
the most part caved in; there is a con-
TIM, tlnaous stream ns11 Of stones falling. so
danger. Everything is burned. If the
paintings by Boest and Wander WeRhe
nave not been saved in time. they must
cho,s nave p perished; rtsi, The jubilee in the
walk all over the open space where
tne city used to stand. At the Sept
Coins everything is lying on the
ground The Rue des Ecremers is
burned; to the right the Audience is
burned; the upper part of Rue de Canal
is burned, including the house of the
dean and the students house. The
Hue de Dfest, up to st. Peters, is
heap Of ruins, bricks, scrap iron and
charred beams; no trace of a sidewalk
Is visible, and from the ruins the most
disgusting odors are rising and en-
veloping everything. Rue de la Sta
ton is entirely burned, but the fronts
OF the modern houses have resisted
the fire, and the sight is not as tragic
there as elsewhere.
Il approach the statue Of Just Lipse;
everything burned The house Of David
Ffshbach and the house of Mr.. De-
sagher fallen to pieces, and in the
Petite Rue Louis Nelson's everything Is
destroyed.
"At the foot of the statue. in flower
bed all trampled under foot. there is
an irregular hillock covered with a
few dead leaves. An old woman. rec
ognizing me. comes out of her cellar
and tells me. Monsieur, this is the
people that ever lived She cries.
They were killed by shrapnel fired
upon them as they were leaving their
house. The Capuchin brothers buried
the dead and made temporary graves
for them. Graves were found nearly
everywhere.
Burned in Oil.
TN front of the statue. near q house,
find traces of fire. In this place.
the old woman tells me. the Prussians
burned a body after soaking 1t in pc
troleum. Some men buried the charred
remains I pick up a key which must
have belonged to the dead man-a me-
mento of this monstrous incident.
The greater part Of Rue Leopold
ten. Lemaire. Debaisieux and many
others among them. In the Place du
Peuple everything Is burned. except
one house which Is riddled with bull
let's At the Marche aux Grains the
house of Mr.. Gilbert Is destroyed, as
well as the first houses to the right,
toward 'Boels.' The lower part of Rue De
and the military hospital and the
pharmacy of Mr.. Rauwez are reduced
to ashes. A section of the Rue de Ia
Monnsie, the whole block facing Les
d4h houp th4 -
beck. the optician. the book store of
Mr.. Peters. etc. and the whole 'vieux
Marche' Except the College of the
Josephites) form an entangled mass of
ruins of many shapes.
In the Rue de Namur' above Les
Halles' nothing is burned. but every
thing Is pillaged- The avenues OF
In the center the sight is extraor-
dinartly picturesque-gloomy. abom-
tnable. and more SO IN the evening
when the full moon is shining over
tho mass of ruins, 1t is really fantastic,
daaboltcal, to look at.
Old Louvain Gone.
THE center of old Louvain. the old
city of the Dukes of Brabant, exists
no longer; a new city will have to be
built in the center of the quarters
spared by the torch.
However. that is not yet the end:
the big avenues converging in the CEN
ter have also greatly suffered; the
roads leading into the adjacent cities
are burnt wherever the barbarians
passed through. Thus, for instance, on
the Route de Malines' everything Is
in ashes. right and left, and within a
circumference of eleven kiIometers-
that Is, as far as Campenhout, where
the shrapnel Of the Belgians arrested
the torch of the tncendiary villains,
everything is laid bare. The village
of Herent has been particularly the
object of attacks. 1t is half burnt: six
teen persons were shot and q number
of men sent into captivity. including
the old priest and his two Wears and
the old retired priest
Burned systematically.
These two observations I made In
the course of my exploration Of this
modern Pompeii:
First. The aspect Of the ruins leaves
no doubt that the tncendiary operations
were carried on systematically. in q
well thought out manner. and beyond
doubt by some ones order. Each
house was set on fire separately. This
fact is particularly noticeable on the
S>hauSSee de MalineS' WHARF a 1arre