The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-02-23
POPULATION OF NISH, SERvIA, JUMPS
 TOOvER OO,OOO BECAUSE OF WAR
Thousands of Refugees From Belgrade Offer Grave Prob lem to Municipal Authorities Streets Are Crowded Like Broadway in Rush Hours.


 eg.zh. Serbia. Fob. 2s-Nish. norm ally town of some twenty thousand, has been transformed by the war into city of more than one nun dred thousand souls. The stranger within the city gates wonders where all the people seen on the streets aleeD at night The small public park, as we'll as the two principal shopping streets are as crowded dur ing the daylight hours. as Broadway and Fifth avenue on a late after noon, The problem Of caring for the thousands who fled here from Bel grade and the northern communi- ties of the country when war was declared has been a difficult onea
 Every house with vacant rooms was Communicated by the government but even this action failed to provide shelter for hundreds of fugdtives from the battle districts In the dilen- ma in which the Serbian people found themselves the American Red Cross mission came as 8 veritable God-send. Everywhere the Asso- ciated Press correspond lent has tray eIed he has encountered evidences or good work done by American citiezns and has everywhere found grateful appreciation on the part of the Ser bian people. This appreciation was officially expressed by M. Milosh Pe- 1TOn1GV1fCh,S one or the tors of the diplomatic press bureau, who speaks English perfectly.
 ttOur constitution, said MT. Pe- trsonievitch and all of our institu- tions are really mode1ed from those of the United States of America. and some day we hope to be really an American state here at the end of Europe and the beginning of Asia That, as well as the sympathy and aid for our wounded sent us by the American Red Cross during all three of our recent wars, accounts for the very warm welcome we shall always give to any American who cares to come out and study us at closer range.
 we are not so hospitafble to all foreigners. Serbia is more accus- toned to having enemies than friends. From the time the Serbian empire came under the Turks in the four teenth century, until it's liberation in the early part Of the nineteenth cen txirv. Serbia was cut off as a state from all the rest of the world. Her Turktsh tyrants had but one idea to destroy the soul of the race, the memory of it's glorious and martial past, of it's aristocratic traditions and of it's racial unity with the other Slav great battle of Kossova in 13S9- Koss- ova is q vast plain about 100 miles southwest of Nish. where the battle Of Turkish conquest between the forces of the Sultan Murads I. and the Serbian Emperor IIazar wa! fought In the fourteenth century This great battle ended with the com pIete overthrow of the Serbian em pire and the i've hundred year dom inatlon Of the whole of southwes Europe by the Turks. This dornina. ton included all the peoples nov cornpristng the Balkan States. Al the sons Of the noble Serbian farni1 Aa were carried of to Constantinop1, to form the famous guard of the Jan issArteG. They were reared in com and with but one ideal, the Sultan. certain number of the great Serbian families escaped into Russia, Austri. and Montenegro. From these ant subsequent emigrations have sprun,