Arizona republican., 1917-01-28
FRENCH CHILDREN PLAY WHILE SHELLS
 DROP AROUND THEM
Republican A. P. Leased Wirel

WITH THE BRITISH ARMIES IN FRANCE, Jan. 27.-To those wno have lived among them, the children of the war zone in France will ever remain a psychological riddle. It is positively uncanny to see them at play Where shell might break almost any moment, utterly oOlivious to the soldiers and scenes about them, and with senses so attuned to the ordinary nerve-racking noises that only prolonged lull in the 1 ceaSeleSS roar of guns would cause l them the least concern.
 | They cling with their elders to the remnants of their she'll shattered l homes in the bombarded towns and 1 villages where even vet the German | guns send their shells. Some have been born within sound of the cannon ana others have come into their first sense of being in the midst of battle. | The strange phenomenon of life to them will be the unwonted stiffness of peace.
 striking picture it is to see lit tie French girl, five or six years old, with a plaited pig taif' down her 1 back, tripping bareheaded along road wherever soldier men venture only under the protection of their big steel hats. Such a little girl sat and softly sang and knitted in front of
 
 one bright and warm December noon while a score of aeroplanes whirled and fought overhead and the high blue sky was filled with the fleecy cotton balls that come from bursting shrapnel shells. She could see the scared and scared lines on the distant hills which were the enemy trenches and, still further back. the occasional white hot flashes of enemy guns. | gt 10 n all the world that that at Arras. Arras itself is a strange and ghostly city. Some of the houses are just as their owners left them during the first hombardment in October two veal s ago. Others have been pulverized along with the cathedral. the city han and the railway station-three favor ite targets of the German gunners. The enemy lines skirt the eastern edge of the city and daily from these messengers of death are sent Shriek- ing into Arras-bursting in fury from the sky.
 In the midst of all this malignity of war some two score children or more go to school. Their class room is in the cellar of q house so well demolished that a few additional shells would scarcely change the character of the mass of debris that serves as a protective roof. It would take a ter rife bombardment to interrupt them at their lessons. The muffled sound of shells crashing in the distance has become far too commonplace to attract attention.
 All Arras lives underground. There are quiet periods of the day when the women, children and old men venture abroad for friendly call at q neigh boring cellar or for the sake of a stroll and breath of flesh air Opportunity after opportunity has been given them to leave, but they pefer to remain i with what .s or was, their very own. Three persons were killed just outside the school one day. but :he children in the cellar knew nothing of the tragedy. When school IS out each afternoon the children are told to hur- " home as fast as they can go and there is a great pattering of little | wooden-sole shoes down the melan- - choly streets.
 There are scores of other towns withing the fire zone. but not quite so clcse to the war as Arras. where children live by hundreds. If is nc irfrequent thing 10 hear mothers call ing their children in from desultory bombardment just as they would from shower of rain.
 Several months ago enemy aero- planes dropped bombs in 2 village six or seven miles behind the firing line It was Sunday afternoon and the streets were thronged. Outside a soldiers moving picture theater a line of children were waiting for the doOrs to open. One of the bombs fell neal where they stood. They scattered like so many mice, but within a minute oi two all were scrambling back to theii places in the queue as if nothing al all happened.
 English Tommies love children and wAen bilieted in a village can always be seen playing with the tots. buying them all sorts of candies and sweet meats, and even wheeling them gailN along in perambulators while fond i mothers look on.