The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-11-21
FAMOUS WRITER ON WAR TOPICS TELLS
 HIS IMPRESSIONS OF
 THE FRENCH ZONE
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 THE FRENCH ZONE
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 a rifle on his shoulder. He was carry 1 ing a bag of cement, and from the hull of the barge others appeared each with bag upon his shoulder. There was no mistaking them. Nor their little round caps, high boots and field uniforms of grey green. It was strange that the first persons we should see l since we left the wharf at the foot of Fifteenth street, North river, the first we should see in France should not be French people, but German sol diers.
 1 Bordeaux had the good taste to burn 1 down when the architect who designed | the Place de la Concorde and the 1 buildings facing it was still alive, and after his designs or those of his pu pils Bordeaux was rebuilt. So wherever you look you see the best in what is old and the smartest in what Is modern. Certainly when to that city President Poincare and his cabinet moved the government they gave 1t a re sting place that was both dignified and charming. To walk the streets and wharves is a continual delight. | One is never bored. It is like reading book in which there are no dull pages. Everywhere are the splendid buildings of Louis XIV, statues, parks, monuments, churches, great arches that once were the outer gates, and many miles of quays redolent, not of the sea- but of the wine to which the | city gives her name.
 SADNESS AS WELL AS DELIGHTS 1 But today to walk the streets of | Bordeaux saddens as well as delights. There are So many wounded, there are ! so many women and children all in 1 black. It is a relief when you learn that the wounded are from different parts of France that they have been | sent to Bordeaux to recuperate and are greatly in excess of the propor- | ton of wounded you would find in other cities. But the women and chill | dren in black are not convalescents. l Their wounds heal slowly, or not at all.
 Al the wharves a white ship with l gigantic American flags painted On | her sides and with an American flag | at the stern was unloading horses. l Hty were LOT llS II IcIiCH lllltly anu cavalry, but they were glad to be | free of the ship that their future state , did not distress them. Instead, they kicked joyously, scattering the sen tries, who were jet black Turcos. As one of them would run from plung- ing horse, the others laughed at him with that contagious laugh of the darky that is the same all the world over whether he halls from Mobile or Tangiers, and he would return sheep ishly, with eye rolling, protesting the | horse was "boche."
 Officers, who looked as though in times of peace they might be gentle men jockeys. were receiving the re- mounts and identifying the brands on the hoof and shoulder that had been made by their agents in America. If the veterinary passed the horse, he was again marked, this time with regimen tai numbers, on the hoof with brand : ing iron, and on the Hanks with white paint. In 10 days he will be given a set of shoes, and in month he will be under fire.
 Colonel Rene de Montjou, who has been a year in America buying re- mounts, and who returned on the Chi cago." discovered that one of the horses was a "substitute"; and very bad Substitute" he was. His teeth had been filed, but the French of ficers saw that he was all of IS years old.
 The young American, who, in the in terests of the contractor, was checking off the horses, refused to be shocked Out of the corner of his thin lips he whispered confldentially:
 Suppose he is a ringer" he pro- tested, suppose he Is IS years old, hats the use of their making a hol- Ter? Whats it matter how old he is, if all they're going to do with him is to get him shot?"
 RECRUITS LEAVE FOR FRONT That night at the station, as we waited for the express to Paris. many recruits were starting for the front There seemed to be thousands of them, all new; new sky blue uniforms, new soup tureen helmets, new shoes. They were splendidly young and vigorous looking, and to the tale that France now is forced to call out only old men and boys thea gave the lie
 With many of them to say farewell. came friends and family There was one group that was all comedy. hand some young man under 30, his mother and a younger girl who might have been his wife sister. They had brought him food for the journey chocolate, a long loaf, tins of sardines N bottle of wine, and the fun was in trying to find any pocket. bag or hav- eFSdCk not dllSdQy liIeu lllcy WcIc all laughing, the little fat mother rather mechanically, when the whistle blew. It was one of those shrill, long drawn whistles with which in Europe they start the trains. It had a peevish infantile sound, like the squeak of a nursery toy. But. it was as ominous as though someone had fired a siege gun. The soldiers raced for the cars and the one in front of me, suddenly | grown grave. stopped and kissed the fat little mother. She was still laugh | ing, but at his embrace and at the \ meaning of it. at the thought that the son. who to her was always a baby might never again embrace her, she
 tore herself from him sobbing and fled fled blindly as though to escape from her grief. Other women, theii eyes filled with sudden tears, made way, end with their fingers pressed to their lips. turned to watch her. Tho young soldier kissed the wife or sister or sweetheart, or whatever she was. sl<etohily on one ear. and showed her after the fleeing figure. Guard mama!" he said.
 It is the tragedy that will nevel H grow less. and never grow old