The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1915-05-19

hobeFt Irozier Long MAKES EStehoeo
Tour of Country and Finds Great
Devastation and Much Suffering.
Tells Exactly What He Has Seen and
What People Face.
London.-Robert CroZier Long. au-
thor and special correspondent. has
written an account OF his extended
tour of the war devastated districts OF
Poland. In 1t he says:
"'Finis Polouiae,' Kosciusko's cpl
taph on his country. has been real
lied.
"A tour of central and south Poland
and the Polish parts of Galicia con
vinces me of that. | visited all the
chief towns and many villages. or
ruins OF villages. in 10000 square miles
of country lying between the Austro
German lines and the Nistula In a
semicircle from the BZura TO the Nida.
| visited also the basin of the DunaJec
and Willoka, the theater of the san
culinary May day outbreak. The coun
try is a desert. the home OF nomads
/ got my first glimpse of ii on the
Bzura. west of Warsaw. where during
n four months artillery duel every
habitation has disappeared.
Il reached this battle front first after
dusk and from an observation tower
saw the remnants We're gaunt. erect
pillars. This Is typical of burnt out
Poland. A street OF frame cottages,
often straw matched. catches fire from
the first shell and only ugly rows of
brick chimneys are left.
Isolated factories all have been de
stroyed. mostly by airmen's bombs on
the suspicion that they were staff
headquarters. Thirty villages either
were burned or blown VI.
THE governor of Radon assured me
that in his province 500 villages had
been burned. Refugees assure me that
In "a circle extending thirty miles
around LODI only five villages were
spared.
"Poland's population is suffering as
no Europeans have suffered since the
Thirty Years war. Every second man
is a refuge. Warsaw has 10000 refu-
gees. a third of them Jews. In Radon
| found 1900 refugees. In Kielce 20
900.
"A Warsaw rabbi assured me that
100000 Jews from the towns OF Lodz.
Piotrkow and Lowicz are without
homes. Many refugees still tramp the
roads, begging despairingly from peo-
pie themselves beggars. Many thou
sands are huddled I'm the tottering frag-
ments of cottages. while 10000 are
shivering In the abandoned trenches
and terraced Russian dugouts at Ska.
ryszom.
81 met many refugees without food
or money and mostly Ill clad. Near
ostrowiec was a dreary procession of
men in thick sheepskin coats without
other clothing, women In mems trou-
sers and children in dresses ~improvised
from shawls.
such is Poland's present. The flu
ture will be even worse. The country,
ravaged and irreclaimable. begins to
resemble the primeyal Sarmatian
waste. Roads. forests and even fields
have vanished.
THE roads which have been repair
ed cannot bring food to civilians, fol-
all are crowded by parallel transport
columns. The fields were destroyed
by transport and artillery trains
which. finding the roads too narrow
spread right and left. obliteratins
farms.
Winter grain was not sown. ant
there is no seed grain for spring.
The worst, because 1t is irremedia
BILE. Is the forest destruction. Some
woods have beer hewn wholesale Il
make causeways through morasses
some to ave roads, some to make
clear field for artillery, some shelled t.
bits because they afforded shelter fol
troops. some drenched with petroleum
and burned. This forest devastation
means for Poland generations of beg