New-York tribune., 1915-03-23

man officer IN the auto with mo and
the three German officers IN the auto
that was following ours. gave the short.
crisp German "Hurra!" which has
different sound from our American
"Hurrahi" rs the cars swept over the
German frontier at the little town of
Stralkuwo. Most of these border towns,
by the way, have at least two spelings.
and on some maps Stralkowo becomes
Strazalkowo.
The cheer. though, was good, plain
German. The officers always give IL
when they pass through Stralkowo on
their way to tho battle front in Russia.
and on their way back from the front -
If they are not making the return jour
ney in their collins they repeat the
cheer So, both coming and going, they
are satisfied with life.
As the stretch leading out of Stral
kow0 was almost the last OF good
roads. the soldicr-chauireu took ad
vantage Of il and said how do -you-do
to Russia at a fifty-milc clip. and that
caused the cold to search out hitherto
unsuspectcd parts Of mans in
wards. On a bleak hillside. Just over
the border. was a camp full Of Rus
sian prisoners Of war huge stock
AIDED inclosurc, with German sentrics
moving al slow pace around it
Once we had got well clear of the
frontier and out OF the influence Of the
taut German system Of ordering life,
every mile brought an object lesson
in the differences between the Tcu
tonic and the Slavic way of doing
things.
The contrasts were as amazing as
they were depressing Not five and
twenty miles back all had been trim,
accurate. productive. prosperous;
houses well built and well lighted. cat
tie sleek. roads smooth, the people
with shoulders erect. heads up, eyes
candid, and the hearing Of them inde-
pendent And now we were in re-
gion of waste. CRIME. misery and mud
houses more like huts than like cot
tages. the cattle understood, the roads
atrociouS. and getting worse save
where the German soldiery were mend
ing them, and the people furtive and
painfully obsequiouS. All these tokens
of a backward system. or of no Sys
TEN at all, we're emphasized as the
signs in the Russian language became
more frequent and 'he tall astrachan
caps more numerous.
Weight Of Mature Mich Cows.
The statement about the undersized
Russian cattle over the frontier is no;
fanciful. A German farmer gave me
the facts. They are as follows:
German. ! 500 pounds, l.200 pound;
and 900 pounds Russian, 500 pounds,
500 pounds and 100 pounds.
The comparative weights tell their
own story. The human element
t~.o Ia, H.
farmer said that ;he cause of the
extraordinary difference in weight lay
more in scientific cattle feeding than
in cattle breeding. He added that in
Germany one would find practically no
mature milch cows weighing less than
900 pounds.
Here was a pteous sign Of the bare
ness of existence even in the western
provinces of Russia; we halted by the
roadside for a bit Of tinkering with
the auto, and all the officers left the
cars to restore circulation b. stamping
up and down the highway An old
peasant woman, bent almos; double
and helping herself along with a staff,
drew near us. We watched her idly
at first; then with interest and sym
pathy when her old eyes spied piece
of wood in the road a piece Of wood
perhaps two feet long and an inch
thick. Painfully she bent down, picked
it up, tucked it under her arm and
hobbled forward. As she passed us one
of the officers thrust half a mark into
her hand She hardly seemed 20 know
what the present meant.
All the tragedy of Millets "Man with
the Hoe" was in that bent old woman.
On the German side Of the frontier
we saw men, women and girls at work
mending the roads. With them II was
patriotic service. and even the pink
checked girls welded tho pickaXes and
piled the shovels laughingly. and all
the workers went at the task as If
there were bit Of sport in it. Across
the frontier Russian peasants were
doing the work under the direction of
German soldiers. They. too, worked
cheerfully. but not with the same kind
of cheerfulness the German folks dis
played. With the latter IT was work
done .for the Fatherland'; with the
men in the tall astrachan caps il was
work done for FIVE marks day and
for the invader.
German Tolls Cheerfully Paid.
Russian highways are. in truth, so
bad that farmers ana Shippers lNlHS
in Russian communities lear the from
tier are wont TO make considerable
detours in order TO use the German
roads. This is notably the practice
in Kalisz and towns thereabOuts, for
Kalisz lies in deep indentation
formed by an inward curve of the Ger
man border line. The fact has caused
the German government to revive the
ancient custom of the imposition Of
tolls. The Russians cheerfully paid
the tolls on German roads rather than
levy taxes upon themselves for the I'M
provement of their own roads
And so, over bad roads, we Jared
through miserable villages and towns.
There is nothing more desolate than
n Russian village unless IT is the next
Russian village Mud beneath, CRIME
within and a sodden sky overhead; bare
legged women scufIling across the mar
ket places, the icy slush splashing TO
their knees; men in greasy coats loll-
ing in the dark doorwayS; the filth, es-
peciallv in the inns, unspeakable. Not
even IN the most sequestered Villages
of Belgium have seen such stupid de-
fance of the most elemental rules Of
sanitation. The caves of wild beasts
are more decent than the courts and
....-.. f { manu- a Pugeian inn