Norwich bulletin., 1915-09-29
pevastation In Northern Franee.

The reports issued by the English Society of Friends (Quakers) on their work in the devastated sections of Northern France give vivid account of the destruction and the attempts at reconstruction. Twelve of these re- ports have now been Issued, covering a wide range of territory.
 The Society begins by sending out investigators, who are usually women who have been trained in social work. In accordance with their reports the other workers follow. Nurses visit patients in their own homes, builders erect huts for the homeless peasants, and there is a growing department of agricultural relief. There are four main divisions of activity, with about 125 volunteers from England and a number from other countries.
 Imagine" writes one of the work CTS. "a village in your own vicinity. it may be your home-with some 700 ] houses of which $50 have been burned able to form some idea of what this village from which I am writing is like. The inhabitants left in as- founding bewilderment, hardly able to believe that the German army was so close. and so in the hurry and scram- ble to get away they left everything | behind them, innocently expecting to ] find their belongings again when they returned. And so. when they returned. a few days after the German retreat, | conceive their sorrow and chagrin on ! finding their houses razed to the ground and all trace of their posses sions gone. All their hay and crops, cattle. rabbits. everything. burnt or | destroyed. I admire their courage as
 I see them grubbing in the ruins,
 searching for some lost thing. or be- l ginning-where would you begin?-to | clear aWaV the dabrig"
 1 The secretary of the Relief Commit | tee, Miss Ruth Fry, writes: Tt is not only the material help given The | most important aspect is the courage | raised anew in these much tried sui | ferers, to whom the coming of the
 helpers is a very impressive sign o1 | the reality of our friendship. The
 supreme evil of war is not death, but
 despair. Against such despair the Quaker fights"
 work predominated. At Chalons, fol
 instance, Maternity Hospital was or.
 ganized. The following is from the
 report of the work of this hospital
 Although we were foreigners an( strangers to Madame L., she cam,
 away with us. It was her first baby
 Her husband, a compositor in Rheims
 before he was called to the colors, haI
 been seriously wounded four months
 before. and since then she had had nt news at all. She spoke of him during the long ride back to the hospital, ant
 she told us of the horrors of the bonn
 bardment and her six weeks sojourl
 in the cellars. She spoke of the Ger
 mans in Rheims and said they wer
 very polite and nice to her and to he
 friends. One she had met had beel very sad and had wept over having f , fight and leave his wife and children
 She showed him her husbands pictur
 and he wished her good fortune an
 his safe return. Her courage was
 splendidl Just before a little daugh ! ter was born to her the news cam | that her husband was dead. He courage never failed. For my dea girl want to be strong. she said.'
 I In the later reports 1t Is chief
 agriculture that figures Most of tn farm machines had been destroyed b 3 fire-that Is to say. they survive. bu the iron is so soft that it bends at tn , touch. To replace them about eight
 moving machines were distribute , among the villages on the co-operativ system--and innovation among -th
 French peasantry, and one which mS
 with oposition in some districts. Late t reapers and binders were sirnilarl , provided for the harvest, which ha a been sowed by French women wh z went into the fields immediately afte the German retreat.