The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1916-12-07
Little But SheII-Perforated Walls
and Cellars of Houses
Remain.
WRECKAGE ON every HAND
People Still Cling Tremendously to Ruins
of Hcres-Prison Walls Show
Names of EngIishmen Impris-
oned a Century Ago.

| ArraS has been called the most polg-
! nautly Saddening memorial of the pres
ent war. have visited many devastated
areas in two trips to the British front
this year, during which l have had an
| opportunity to skirt most of the line
| held by King Georges armies. have
| just visited ArraS and l acquiesce in
the belief that it brings home the
cruelties of war more than any town
or city which l have heretofore visit
ed. l have tried to imagine myself an
American tourist and Arras as one of
the memorials kept as it is for the
view Of the whole world, writes Joseph
W. Grigg in the New York World.
''In ten years time pilgrimages to it
would amass to the French enough
money to build another Arras," was
the comment of one of my companions
as we passed through its streets.
Hardly a house in the place but
what has suffered from the German
boinbardments, especially the fierce
bombardAent of January and Febru-
airy, 1915. Where shells have not done
actual damage, conclusion has. In the
cellars a few families still reside, de-
spite the shells which fitfully are
"lObbed over" by the Germans.
Arras might have been fought over
yesterday, for pieces Of shell and
other paraphernalia of war are still
in evidence through its thoroughfares.
A Century-CId Prison,
We went into one building where,
only very recently, have been found
scrubbed on the walls the names of a
number of Englishmen who were kept
there in prison little more than a cen
fury ago. They We're: John Ellis, pris-
oner Of war, 1S06-1810; William Mill,
William Wheatley and Thomas Al
desOn, prisoners of war, 1S09-1S10;
John Jemison, prisoner of war, August,
1906, and John Jones, prisoner of war,
December, 1903.
If battlefelds are already being
leased for tourist purposes, what a
profitable project it would be for some
of these forehanded spectators if
they could only obtain an option on
Arras, greWsome as the thought of
such protit-making is when the war is
still before its very doors.
We walked through streets lined ON
both sides with ragged structures.
Some We're only frameworks for gi-
gantic shell holes; others were nib
bled here and there by smaller shells
or shrapnel. Between the cobble-
stones in the street the grass was
road tracks at the big station.
We climbed piles of debris from the
cathedral and wendell our way through
some of the narrow streets until we
came to a place where it was possible
to enter the deep cheese cellars where,
in peace times, thousands of cheeses
are stored after being brought in from
the country roundabout.
A smiling Frenchwoman who lives
at the very entrance of one of these
deep cellars took us into one, where
we walked by candle light to a place
where the light from above suddenly
came through a shell hole. For three
days and nights she and others with
q number of children remained in one
of these cellars. subsisting or raw po-
tatoes. Her husband was killed by
shell as he stood on the sidewalk in
front of their home.
People Still Cling to It.
These people, who still senaciously
cling to the ruins of their home, find
time for laughter. This woman asked
if we We're not afraid We would be
torpedOed in making the cross-chan-
mel trip. 1t was suggested that the
submarines We're no such menace as
frequent commandment. She smiled
and said the cellars were quite safe
during such times and, anyway, they
were getting used to it.
On one of the main thoroughfares
we stopped to have an open-air lunch
con. We sat and chatted in this
street, which in ordinary times was
one of the most creditable in the city.
| Our conversation was the only thing
to disturb its CHASTITY solemnness ex-
cept the rustling of tree leaves and
the intermittent shell fire going on
within a few hundred yards of the
outskirts of the place. Across the
road a. tin sign was tapping in the
breeze, the only reminder of a once
prosperous business. The sign was
there but the building had practically
been demolished.
1t was with no sense of regret that
we left Arras and gazed once more on
open fields, fields dominated by Ger