The Sentinel=record. (Hot Springs, Ark.) 1900-current, 1914-10-20
HOLLAND HAS A PROBLEM
In Providing For and Feeding the
Great Number of Frightened Refu-
gees Who Have Sought Asylum
Within the Little Country's Bounds.

Roosendaal, Holland, via London,
Oct. 1910 p. m.-The volume or
Belgium refugees, an almost process
sion of panicstricken people which
has been passing without restraint
/ the little red, white and blue posts of
the boundary of the peaceful kingdom
of the Netherlands at last is growing
| less turbulent
Probably 100000 have come rushing
into iolland since Antwerp fell.
The little town of Esschen, where
the dazed Belgians took fearful fare
well of their own country quadrupled
in population in a week. The four
bakeshops were besieged by the starv,
ing fugitives. The dilapidated border
station where thousands slept was in
1.-THE hands of Germa nsailors, VINO
were selling tickets for trains drawn
by Belgian locomotives, managed by
engineers of the German navy and by
sailors, big fellows, from the harbors
of Hamburg and Bremen. The Ger
mans nave been endeayoring to in
duce the refugees to return to their
homes and resume their vocations.
Esschen was the center of the
panic which followed Antwerp's tah.
great majority Of the residents OF
Antwerp had been told repeatedly
that their city was the strongest fort
ress in Europe. They remained
peaceably in their homes and lusti Y
cheered the British naval brigades,
who arrived with motor trucks ant.
machine guns. believing that their
number was ten times what it was.
Personal inconvenience, such as
the absence of water for ten days. the
city id darkness after O'Clock and
the refusal of permission to Belgians
outside the city to enter were en-
dured.
The governor of Antwerp signed
proclamation which fell like a bomb
shell: History teaches us how
sometimes fortified cities have been
subjected to bombardment, therefore
everybody is warned to leave the city
if possible before O'Clock in the att
ernoon."
The ceaseless flight toward Esschen
began. Frenzied thousands rushed
homeward packed their valuables in
sheets. towels and bedspreads, strap
ped children on their backs or placed
them in wheelbarrows and hastened
to the nearest station. There was no
necessity for tickets. The trains
gathered in people like cattle.
Freight cars, cattle cars, milk
vans, cold storage cars, anything and
everything on wheels started north
ward. This lasted five days. Pas
sengers rode on the roofs of cars, the
steps of the locomotives and any con
venient foothold they could find.
Usually the distance between Ant
werp and Esschen is covered in about
20 minutes. The refugee trains took
six hours. Then followed another
slow ride through to Roosendaal,
where by a common impulse the resi-
dents carried everything eatable to-
ward the stations The Dutch SOL
diers lined UP in solid rows, passed
the baskets of food in the windows to
the refugees, then they escorted the
frightened thousands to schools, the.
aters barracks and barns, where
shelter awaited them.
The welcome was rather elemen.
tary, but it was warm hearted. TAe
Dutch supplied the refugees with the
best they had, although sometimes it
was only brown bread and water for
those who lad lived luxuriously in
their Belgian homes. For the sick
and lame there were woolen blankets,
into which they huddled.
Roosendaal had too few ambulances
to accommodate the hundreds of in
sane and those suffering from incur
able diseases who had been released
pellmell from Antwerp institutions
and crowded into these trains. One
train of eight cattle cars contained
only former inmates of asylums for
the insane.
They were treated as far as pos
sible in the neighboring Dutch insti-
4 tutions. At Nispen, where a barbed
wire fence marks the frontier, the
peasant population came afoot like a
mediaeval tribe migrating with cows,
pigs, mattresses and whatever else
they deemed most precious, to the old
people and children not knowing