The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1915-08-10

were destitute-was chosen chair
man of the commission and proceeded
to organize the greatest commissary
undertaking the world has ever
known.
Food was purchased by the COM
mission throughout Canada, the Mis-
issippi valley, the Pacific coast, the
Argentine and India, and large gifts
in kind were received. Steamers
were chartered until the commission
had "A steamers under its flag, with
cargo capacity of 100000 tons.
These carried the food to Rotterdam,
where it was trans-Shipped to a large
feet of lighters, also under control
of the commission. By early spring
the commission was importing food
stuffs at the rate of $4,000 worth
per month.
Figures issued under date of April
| 10 showed that the commission had
delivered 400,065 tons of foodstuffs,
valued at $29, 874,335, and 271,719
tons more, valued at $21, 560,35O,
were on the way or had been arrang-
ed for. The provisioning department
of the commission has working cap
ital of $10.000,O0O. advanced by
banks and Belgian institutions.
The Tragedy of Poland.
The tragedy of Poland in some ways
has been greater than that of Bel
GUM. The great armies of the Aus
! tro-Germans and Russia have swayed
back and forth across the country so
that by spring it was estimated that
| 200 towns and 5000 villages had
been submerged by the tide of war,
5000 of the villages having been raz-
ed to the ground.
The material damage at that time
was estimated at more than $780,.
100000, all stores of corn and for
age had been seized or destroyed,
l 100000 horses and 100000 cat
tie had been taken for the armies
or had died for want of pasturage,
100000 rural inhabitants had been
reduced to beggary and cities as large
, as Kalicz, with 10000 inhabitants,
suffered terribly. The $500, 100000
annual industrial production has been
stopped and 100000 wOrkmen are
out of employment. The majority of
the 100000 living in towns and cit
les are destitute. And to add to their
tragedy Poland has furnished 1900
900 soldiers, about equally divided
between the two hostile lines, fight
ing in what is to them fratricidal
war.
Relief in Poland has been in the
hands of the citizens committees in
Poland, headed by the Central Citi-
zens' Committee at Warsaw, of the
| Rockefeller Foundation and of Jew
ish committees. The latter are car
ing for some $4,000 destitute corelig-
ionists in Warsaw alone, chiefly ref
ugees from the rural districts. EX-
,penditures for relief in Poland have
been amounting to about 100000
month.
Servia One Great Hospital.
Servia suffered less from invasion
than Belgium or Poland, for she tur-
nished a battle-ground for only short
time early in the war. Refugees from
! the threatened districts crowded into
I the cities. It. was estimated last
spring that there were 80, 200 typhus
cases in the country and cholera and
smallpox were threatened.
French, American and British vol
unteer physicians and nurses, work
| ing under the Red Cross, were form
ed into sanitary commission.
When they arrived all Servia was
one great hospital. In the main build
| ing at Belgrade, accommodating
500 patients, there was death rate
of IS to 40 a day. The work of stop
ping the plague occupied many
weeks, during which thOusands-no
one knows how many Thousands
died. Of the $4,000 Austrian prison
ers in the country it is estimated that
90. 900 died of disease.