New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-04-03
FRIGHTFULNESS OF WAR
BORNE IN UPON JEWS
Won Hindenburgs Invasion of Poland Means Loss of
Home and Money by Those Who Have Small
Interest in the Cause the Issue.
By JAMES ODONNELL BENNETT.

Convinced at last that they could
not wish Goals out of the sky, he again
scratched his blond head and said he
would see. In an hour he returned,
bearing on his back a sackful Of Goals
! he had wheedled out of somebody at
the supply station in the freight yards
| three-quarters of a mile away.
| lnasmuch as this soldier was order
/ ly to three other correspondents, and
| had endless fetching and carrying to
| do, | thought his act emphatically
| handsome, and wondered with a pang
whether on clustering night in a
/ camorous war town--where everybody
is wanting something would have
done as much for an alien who meant
nothing to me.
Ordered TO Count the Goals.
With a respectful warning to count
the Jumps of coal morning, noon and
night and to send for him and his
"lady" if they seemed to me to vanish
too rapidly. the soldier clicked his
heels and went his way into the storm.
Forthwith the Czernilowski family
proceeded to thaw me out, the two
pretty Jcssicas of the mild-eyed Shy
lock taking turns with their mother In
ministering before the mausoleum.
They pley scrupulously fair in the
matter of the Goals, and If they had
not ! should not have cared, for one
morning when I went through the
crowded living room and saw the mild
eyed one praying In the chill dawn,
with his face turned toward Jerusa-
lem, a great awe came over me and |
was ashamed Of the blond soldiers
suspicious.
The praying Jew had some kind Of
priestly headdress thrown over his
head. and his numerous family were
huddled in bed, some of the beds made
up on the floor. lie was uttering the
words of his petition with amazing
rapidly, and the son who had the "af-
fiction of the lungs" had stopped
coughing TO listen.
don't suppose ] shall ever forget
the picture | saw in that dim light
co much trouble and so much faith;
the age long trouble that has come
upon generation after generation
through mans war-making; the faith,
too, coming down through the ages to
this little deprecatory man and touch
ing him with nobility as he stood in
the squalid dawn with his face tow
ard the city of God.
Even when my hostess puts down in
her neat little bill the item Of mark
and a half day for fires made with
the German armys Goals | had no
heart to question it. for now | know
that my small troubles are a festival
compared with her real ones-the son
dying, the family scattered, the house
In kalisch burned, the 10000 rubes
gone, and she quartered among stran-
gcrs in a war town.
can hear the boy dying coughing
his life away in the long watches of
the highland as for the 10000 rubles,
a rubin sounds like so much more
than so cents that | find myself be-
coming extensively sympathetic in the
matter of the fees for service.
Women Old Before Their Time.
SO il goes with the women of these
parts IN war time, and so it will 90,
suppose, with the dark eyed, gentle
Jessicas of this household, and in a
few years they, too, will be old before
their time.
The mother Is a very pious woman.
Yesterday was Friday. and in the eve
ming | placed a mark and my auto
goggles, from which the strap had come
loose, on her table and asked her
whether she would do a bit of sewing
for me.
There were very earnest explana-
tons from her and very gentle ones
rom the mild eyed one, the gist of
which was that this was the eve of the
Jewish Sabbath, and so no work could
he done before nightfall of the next
day. | did pretty well with bent pins,
and so we all saved our orthodoxy.
The rest of the town has been look
ing with equal scrupulousness after
its orthodoxy all day to-day. The COM
munity is so predominatingly Jewish
that scarcely any of the dozens of dark
little cavelike shops are open, and ex-
cept for soldiers the streets are almost
deserted.
Here's a pretty mess! Mrs. Czerni-
lowski has just come in with the It'd
ings that petroleum has gone up to 3
marks a liter-and you can't buy it
even at that price.
SO no writing tonight.
AS early as A o'clock in the after
noon it is too dark to read. Unless |
can find soldier to drink tea with,
there IS nothing for it but to go to bed
and stay there for twelve or fourteen
hours, for it is not really daylight be-
fore Z in the morning. If man sat
here looking into the dark, hearing
naught but the boom of the guns at
Bolimow, and thinking of home -ach,
that way the horrors lie!
We might go over to the officers
casino and see what is brewing there
besides tea. Much as | loathe the
gloom and slop of the place, there is
human companionship there, to say
nothing of most amiable dog which
responds to patting.
The quest for excitement at the Of
ficers' casino was not unrewarded In
truth, the reward was an incident char
acteristically Teutonic and not without
results, phase of it which also was
Teutonic.
"Sixty Pfennigs for Grog."
A young under officer who, had you
taken him out of uniform and put him
back into civilian clothes, would have
stood forth as the thrifty grocer of a
little German town, had finished his
savory klops and his steamng glass
of tea and rum.
He was reasonably at peace with the
world, and a Russian cigarette, though
it smclled like cornsilk, gave the
touch TO his contentment.
"Rechnung, bitte!" he called to the
Polish Russian innkeeper.
"Klops, with bread, mark go" said
the host, land two grogs, l mark 20"
The under officer raised his voice in
amazed reproach.
Sixty pfennigs for grog," he howled.
Sixty pfennigs," said the landlord.