The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1916-11-11
Miss Marion NJ. Rice of Brat
tieb0r9 Writes Letter
from Paris
GUARDING h INST
SPIES NECESSITY

cause Of Delays and Red Tape-Stick
Of Wood and Tin Can in Lieu of
Block Signal.
The difficulties of railroad travel in
France during war times are amusingly
described in a recent letter from Miss
Marion NJ. Rice, who went to that
country in February, 1915, and since
then has been nursing in a military
hospital in st. Valery- en-Caux. The
letter was written in Paris and is in
part as follows:
lit seems to me that / am ALWAYS
in Paris and yet il is six months since
was last here. | don t want to take
the time for we are busy almost all the
time but ] had to come to the dentist
SO here / am. 1t is no Joke going any
where; you don't decide to 90, buy
your ticket and start off. Not at all
First you take your precious red car
net (portfOlio), which contains all your
family history and a few other things,
to the commissioner of police, then you
repeat your family history, where, when
and why you want to 90 away, how
long you want to stay and any other
little items of interest the old gentle
man wants to know. You sign this
declaration, give him your red Garnet
and get receipt, then sit down and
possess your soul in patience. If You
are lucky, You may get your Garnet
back in ten days; if you are not lucky,
why then you have nothing to do but
to wait, hope and pray, although more
| often YOU feel like swearing. / waited
a month for mine, and a month with the
toothache ism t conducive to good tenn
per.
after your Garnet cones back and
your request is approved, chat is by no
means the end. You must take it again
to be stamped the day before you 60
away, YOU must again fill out a paper
| giving family history, where you have
been living, how long you are going
away, for how long, etc, etc. Then
when You buy your ticket, YOU must
again have your Garnet stamped. On
the train an officer comes through and
demands it. After l got here, | had
to go the commissioner of police and be
stamped again. Then before / 90 home
it must be stamped again, also after |
get home. Does your head spin! OF
course, if you don IT live in the wal
zone, you do not have to 90 through
all this red tape, but / don t blame
them one bit. They must look out fol
spies.
Z" Aside from the red tape. travel is
not all joy. We live on little branch
road which in the winter time has TIVE
trains day. You must take the !
o clock train or nothing to come L
Paris. 1t is a single track line run on
the extreme of simplicity, no block sic
nails or bother like that. They have {
stick of wood with a tin can on it an,
when one train arrives, the enginee
i. gives the stick to the next one tina.
goes out, and whoever has that stick O.
: wood has the right Of way. No lon.
proceedings necessary to find out VIII,
! is IN the right if any collision occurs
Just hunt for that stick Of wood.
!. After falling over babies and ia
old women with baskets and live hens
!. etc, you get into funny little com
partment and wait till the train see
7. fit to start, which it finally does wit
= much grooming and painting. You shak
and rattle and puff and stop at ever
Il woodshed-only they don t have wood
u sheds here. You might think YOU wer
= in the Twentieth Century Limited, b
the amount of fuss you create. At las
- after two hours with a final squirt an
rattle you draw up, putting and pantin
as after a long, hard race You hav
reached Montville, -aceomplished SAT
ly the first fifteen miles O. of vor
journey and are ready to begin the tri
to Paris
4 "Of course, the Paris train is a
I, right. There is nothing extraordinaI
Y about that but the trip is rather int
esting in spots for you pass hundred
of Boche prisoners working in railroa
yards or on construction work. The
don't look at all unhappy and | som
times think they are mighty glad
be out of it all. Then in places whe
they are training the young soldier
you pass through fields full of practi
trenches. You don t get away from Il
war 4 minute; for one thing, you nev
see an ablc-bodied man out of III
)n FORM