The Sunday telegram. [volume] (Clarksburg, W. Va.) 1914-1927, 1914-12-27
Eighty Thousand Innocents Born
in War Mothers Scrape Empty
Tin Cans Thrown from German
Camp Kitchens.

Two or three little pictures before
y ] really begin:
!; II was the Pas de Calais at the end
4 Of oetober-an October blessed. in
this year of dread, with clear. cool,
bracing weather. much like our own
Indian Summer. Around turn in the
Z road came strange. shutting multi
tude. doubly strange In that well-or-
dered Landscape.
At the head marched an old woman
"a stalwart. straight backed Flemish
woman vigorous In spite of her
sixty years Beside her walked a boy
!; Of not more than twelve, his figure
already settling into a peasant solid
ity. He. like the old woman. carr
Red on his back bundle wrapped in
y sheet. And between thom they
4 dragged by tho hand little girl, not
moro than six years old-half car
ricd her, since now and then she
raised her feet from the ground and
let them support her.
BEYOND TEARS.
IT was plain to see why she lifted
4 her feet. Her poor little shoes. heavy
though they had been in the begin
ming. were worn clear through. Her
clothes and hair were matted with
dirt. and her face was gray with It,
save for the streaks made by her
tears. She had stopped crying now;
she was beyond that. There comes
the time with all these refugees.
young and old. when they get beyond
tears.
Behind followed the rest OF the
refugee caravan, like these leaders.
Z except for minor details. OF course
there was not among them a man of
Z vigorous years-only a few grand
fathers, trudsing along beside their
women folk. Mainly, II was q COL
lection OF young childrcn-all, like
tho little girl in the leading party,
beyond tears and misery.
"A MONTH OF FLIGHT.
A dozen of the women. at least,
carried babes in arms who had some
how survived the miserics of days
and days of walking. These were the
last of the Belgian refugees to pour
Into France. They came mainly
from that thickly settled. fertile, once
prosperous southwestern strip along
which Germans and allies were now
fighting for the bridge-head OF the
User.
But not all. Some of them ~ as
i learned from the few who had the
energy to talk-lived further north.
A month before they had fed from
the German advance after the capture
of Antwerp; and they had been flee
ing ever since-sleeping in the fields
through rain and shine. eating what
bread OF charity Heaven only knows.
BABE BORN IN TENT.
The tail of the procession. i found,
had halted at a crossroads beside
which some one had erected tent,
from blankets strung on sticks. AS 1
approached. wondering what this
might be. an automobile came whiz-
cling down the road at seventy miles
an hour-there are no speed laws for
military automobiles In time of war.
1t stopped beside the tent; there was
parley and man in Belgian uni
form wearing Red Cross brassard
On his arm alighted. f6a
What Is it--what Ia happenings"
+ asked the first of the refugees be-
side the tent-an old man who
crouched in the gutter.
''Un enf1nt-a baby is being born"
he said briefly. The man in uniform
was q Belgian surgeon taking time
= Ill ne teln -
assist IN giving life.
Again: 1t was the next day In
calais-Calais, once SO busy and so
venerable. and in spots SO pretty. but
now faded and dirty with the passage
of armies. Ten thousand Of these
+ refugees came into Calais that day.
That day. also. the Red Cross was
bringing In Belgian wounded by the
thousand there had been serious
hghting along the User.
AERDED ON THE PIERS.
The refugees, herded or escorted by
the police. streamed down the streets
TO the concentration yards prepared
for them on the docks OF the French
Government. which was going to
transport them to the Midi as soon as
: It could get the steamers. You would
hear now and then the foot OF an
automobile horn. and the refugees
would make way for the passage of a
motor-car loaded to capacity with the
white-faced wounded. The car would
( 20 on, and the refugees would close
their gaps and resume their weary,
nerveless pace.
s.. At the concentration yards they sat
In family groups. the children hud.
died about their mothers and grand