The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-25
FRANCE ACCEPTS WAR AS PART OF HER DAILY LIFE Cheers Are Reserved and Bodies of Troops Not
 Attractive MEN IN TRENCHES LIKE CAVE JEWELLERS Visit to Front Leaves Impression of Infinite Lines of Trenches and
 Sea of Mud Found Everywhere
ny RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.

Fly RICHARD HARDING DAVIS.
 Paris November i5.-(Special Corre- spondence)~In England it is Business as usual; in France it is War as usual"
 The English tradesman can assure his customers that with such an "old estab- lished' firm as his not even war can in terfere; but France, with war actuaIIv on her soil. has gone further and has accepted war as part of her daily life She has not merely swallowed but di- sested it. It is like the line in Pinero's play where one woman says she cannot so to the opera because of her neuralgia
 Her friend replies: You can have your neuralgia in my box just as well as any, where else" In that spirit France has accepted the war The neuralgia may hurt, but she does not take to her bed ana groan; she smiles cheerfully and courageously and goes about her duties- even sits in her box at the opera
 As we approached the front-which now is French word--ths was even mora evident than in Paris. where signs of war are all but invisible Outside of Amiens We met regiment of Scots with the pipes playing and the cold rain spashing their hare legs To watch them pass we leaned from the car window mat we should be interested seemed to surprise them; no one else was inter- ested. A year ago when thev passed if was roses, roses all the way''-or at east cigarettes, chocolate. and red wine Now, in spite of the skirling bagpipes. no one turned his head. To the French they had become part of the landscape.
 A year ago the roads at every 200 wards
 
 dle race. Now, except at distances of four or five miles, the barricades have disappeared. One side of the road is re- served for troops the other for moving vehicles, Those vehicles We met-for the most part two wheeled hooded carts no longer contained peasants vita hei4. belongings flying from dismantssd vH lages. Instead. they carried rsrds truck, pigs, or calves on the WE Fo 44.sr- ket On the drivers sent tn seaasv whistled cheerily and cracked wbs4 The long lines of London huses la lasi I year advertised soap. mustard sfiH a~a music halls. and whieh, now ar asr,r- ous gray; the ambu'ances, the ,raat gan% 1 drawn by motor trucks with esterl.iil lar wheels. no longer surprise him,
 ENGLISH PAYING GU The English ally has ceased Id he stranger and is paying guest in the towns and villages of Artos The shop Windows are dressed chiefly for him. The names of the towns are Flemish: the names of the streets are Flemish: the names over the shops are Flemish: but the goods for sale are marmalade. timed lSippers the Daily Mail, and the Pink 'Un.
 'Is it your people who are selling those things?" I asked an English offi- cer
 Te question amused him.
 Our people won't think of 1t until tho " ia hn x-oi1 st.,,t IN are different
 They are capable. adaptable and obliging. If our men ask these shop-
 keepers for anything they haven't got they don't say: We don't keep it.; they get him to write down what it is he wants, and they send for It."
 It is the better way. The Frenchman does not say, War is running mel he makes the war help to support him. and at the same time gives comfort to his ally.
 A year ago in the villages the old men stood in disconsolate groups with their hands in their pockets Now they are hrslSly at work They are working in the fields, in the vegetable gardens, helping the Territorials mend the roads. On every side of them were the evidences of war--n the fields abandoned trenches, barbed wire entanglements, shelters for fodder and ammunition, hangars for re- pairing aeroplanes. vast slaughter houses, parks of artillery and on the roads end less lines of lorres, hooded ambulances, marching soldiers
 To us those were of vivid interest, but to the French peasant they are In the routine of his existence. After a year or it war neither greatly distresses nor greatly interests him. With one hand hs fights; with the other he blows THE FIRST SIGN OF WAR We had made bet as to which would see the first sign of real war, and the sign of 1t that won and that gave gen eral satisfaction. even to the man who lost, was a group of German soldiers sweeping the streets of St. Pol. They were guarded only by one of their own number and they looked fat. sleek ana contented When. on our return from the trenches. we saw them asail' We knew they were to be greatly enVied- he- tween standing waist high in mud m a trench and being drowned in 1t. buried in it blown up or asphyxlated. the post Of crossing sweeper is ono to be desireu. Rut the aeroplane steadily and swltty conveyed itself out of range and out or sight
 SCARRED WITH TRENCHES To say where the trenches began ana where they ended is difficult We were passing through land that had been re- trieved from the enemy. It had been fought for men by men. loot py too'. To win it back thousands of lives had been thrown like dice upon table There were vast stretches of mud of fields once cultivated but now scared with pits. trenches, rusty barbed wires The roads were rivers of clay They were lined with dugouts, cellars and caves There burrows in the earth were supported by beams and suggested 9 shaft in disused mine. They looked like the tunnels to coal pits. They were inhabited by a race of French unknown to tho boulevards--me bearded. deeply tanned. and caked with clay. Their uniforms were like those of foot bal players on rainy day at the end of the second half. We were entering what had been the village of Ablain, and before us rose the famous heights of Mont de Lorette To scale these heights seemed a feat as incredible as scaling our Palisades or the sheer cliff of Gib- raltar. But they had been sealed. and The side toward us was crawling with French soldiers, climbing to the trenches. descending from the trenches. carrying to the trenches food, ammunition and fuel for the fires
 MUD, NOTHING BUT MUD A cold rain was falling and had turned the streets of Ablain and all the roads
 lContinued on Dage I've,