The states-graphic. (Brownsville, Tenn.) 1???-1984, 1917-01-12
DEPARTMENT OF LOST
SOLDIERS ESTABLISHED
Pope Benedict at Vatican Aids in
Learning Whereabouts of Many

Vi
Rome, January 6.-Pope Benedict
XIV, through the department of lost
soldiers established at the Vatican, has
aided in learning the whereabouts of
more than 10000 lost soldiers about
whom heart-broken relatives had in
quired through personal appeals to
His Holiness. He is receiving, and
has received since the war began, some
200 letters a day from distracted par
ents, wives and sweethearts in all of
the belligerent nations, pleading that
he use his good Offices to learn wheth-
er their loved ones, about whom they
have been unable to hear anything,
are dead, wounded or sick or prisoners.
The Pope has found this one of the
saddest phases of the war. Notwith-
standing the size of his daily mail, he
reads all such letters himself In the
beginning Of the war, he attempted to
investigate each personally, but the
task became so formidable that it was
necessary to establish a separate de-
partment of the Vatican, now in
charge of Father Huismarn, under the
Pope's direction. His Holiness, after
reading one of the appeals, makes
some notations on an envelope and
sends it OF the department of lost sol
diers, which has its offices on the
| fnnrtb HoOr If tbo Not;naa ,,ooy Iho
papal secretary of state. Here are
/ some thirty priests and civilians en-
! gagged in clerical work
The department has access to Off
cial records transmitted by the Prus-
sian minister of war to the Holy See
at Lugano, Switzerland, and has off
ces at Paris, Constantinople, Vienna,
Freiburg, Brussels and Padeborue,
Westphalia, Germany, with several mi
nor branches in other countries.
The department has become one of
the most highly organized of any in
the Vatican. 1t writes several hun
dred letters a day, and to date such
letters have run up to total of more
than 100000. AS the department re-
turns all money enclosed in letters of
appeal, and as person writing from
England cannot we'll enclose Italian
stamps for international correspond
ence, the stamp bill alone of the de-
partment has been upward of $780,
900.
After making an official demand on
the government of the country where
the lost soldier is supposed to be, the
department causes each new name to
be posted up in the military prison
camps, by the aid of Catholic chap
lain always present, in the hope that
some of the lost soldiers comrades
may see the name and offer some clue
that will lead to his location. Several
thousand of such lists have been print
ed. There are ITO lists, each contain
ing 200 names, for the Italian army
alone, making thus a total of $4,000
lost Italian soldiers. Aside from this,
the department has copies of official
army prisoner lists, arranged by ma
tions, and it Immediately searches
these lists carefully for the names of
, the lost soldier.
Despite the difficulties of the task,
the department has so far been able
to find more than 10000 lost soldiers
and the Pope has received treasured
collection of letters of thanks from
families, often from little children, who
address him as Mister" or who give
him the title names of popes dead
many hundreds of years.
The correspondent of the Associated
Press on a visit to the department
saw a bundle Of letters that had just
been sent by the Pope, possibly IS in
number and on the envelope of each
one in his own handwriting was writ
ten directions concerning its DISPOSE
ton. Among the heap was a letter
from his sister, the Countess Persico
della Chiesa, Of Genoa, the Pope's
home city, asking that a search be
made for a certain soldier of Genoa.
"The Countess begs attention again"
the Pope had written on this letter
Another one Of the letters was one Of
thanks from French family whose
son, Jean Laforgue, had been for two
years in the Orient without being able
TO send news to his family of himself,
but the Pope had been able to discover
.his lest son at Samsam, in distant
Turkey.
Another letter was one of thanks
from the family of Count Hugo de
Roehefort, lieutenant in the aeronautic
corps, VINO, during the Somme often
sive, fell into the German lines. By
telegraphing to the Nuchio at Munich,