Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-10-31

water. as swallow dips its wings
in flight. and then in a rush of foam
it lighted and swan. Seagulls were
resting on the quiet water. smaller
by half than our American gulls.
Destroyers. chasers and monitors lay
in the lagoon. One of the monitors
was carrying two 15-inch guns,
which shoot shells of 1850 pounds at
81 900 shot. Her draught was seven
feet. She looked like turtle with a
mushroom on it's back. The Italian
officers were courteous enough to
remember that the Monitor idea was
American.
The commandant of Grade showed
us his chart of aeroplane lombard
ments. He had yellow dots for the
year 1915. and there were eighty
eight, meaning that eighty-eig
Austrian bombs had fallen on his tiny
section; 1916 had green. dots, 163 in
number and ninety-nine red dots
marked 1917, up to the day of our
visit.
But our mission not only made
series of mental pictures of the
fight, it also was invited to examine
the recreation huts of the soldiers.
American and English agreed that
they had nothing to add in scope or
plan to the efficient, widely-inclusive
social work for soldiers, carried on
by the priest-professor, Don Mi
nozzi, who has established 14O recrea-
tion centers for Italian soldiers in the
war zone. Many of them are within
easy range of Austrian fire. One of
them was packed with men a hum
dred feet away from a barrack,
crushed like an eggshell, by shell
of the day before.
mt.
is professor in the College of Romeo
spent two evenings with the mission
and gave a hearty welcome to the
entrance into his field of the new
ccmers. The work is under way ana
we'll dome 1T needs only to extend
it in number of huts, along the lines
laid down by italian initiative.
One of the appealing features OF
these huts, created by Don MinozZi.
is the touch of idealism he has given
to the war drive of his people. He
has connected their present effort
with the historic past of their race
by covering the walls of the huts
with Autographs of the great upris-
ing and unification of Italy under
Mazzini and Garibaldi and Cavour
There are q dozen different scenes
in color scattered through recreation
buildings, each picture recording q
dramatic moment in that proud
period of the Risorgimento. Each
one of the thousand soldiers in each
one of the 140 huts is thus able to
take heart for his present fight, be-
cause of the vivid emblem of what
his people once did. Thus, Soldato
Antonio Borgiotti, Soldato Colombo
(the clever colonel did not omit to
point out the significance of the
name to an American), and Soldatos
Bruno Carlo and Vinnercati Angelo
q copy names I saw are fortunate
in having such a background made
plain to them.
In Granezza, in the pine forest
where there was once only an innr
there is now a soldiers village of
barracks, and in the midst of them
a recreation hut, with cinema, and
reading and writing room. The place
was bright and green in the sun OF
the roadway, and then in moment
we stepped into the gloom and lone
Illness of the forest, and we realized
a little what a film would mean in
the long evenings of the reverend
ing war. And still more we saw that
that work of the Casa" was good
when the thick wet mists drifted in
and hung on the trees and flooded
the caves. One would like to meet
in the winter forests of the Tren-
tino.
There was a recreation hut, eight
thousand feet above sealevel, under
the Trefani Gin the Dolomites). At a
congested point there are five huts
in a radius of five kilometers.
We came to a village where the
hut has become a varied plant, with
an equipment for interesting 1900
men at a time. There were rifle
range, bowling alley. photograph
gallery (the soldier likes to cheer
the folks at home with picture OF
himself "well and happy'D, cinema
house, a ball range. In this, the
figures to be hit are fantastic medi-
eyal scarlet figures of devil, king and
queen (not 1.-The" King and Queen)
The same recreation center had a
gymnasium and football field. II
would take a sour critic to suggest
any improvement for the outfit.
In another hut, in the readingroom
I noted that in one month Dante's
Divine Comedy had been drawn out
by thirteen private soldiers (the ink
record gave the rank of the reader)
This hut had a bandstand and, il
must be said, a lottery. Chance is
a popular lady in the war zone, where
to morrow may not come for you
WITH Ilt VI tiiO sum ms
was the place, indeed. where We
called on Friday, and the shell had
broken the next building on Thurs
day.
And these huts are not hole in
the ground in a low, wet dreary
country. They are in great forests
and on the high hills. by rivers
hurrying as they near the Adriatic
and in villages, once quiet and still
beautiful They share in scenery un-
surpassed in Europe, and one feels
that the men who crowd them must
be a little gladder of their long watch
i'm a. landscape that is never tawdry
The British and French often have
had to practice heroism in mean
places where vermin is thick and
mud deep, and the dreary level of the
land answers the monotony of the
have suffered and dared in noble
long endurance. But the Italians
scenery, the worthy setting for mer
about to die. The wounded are ig-
noble mud-splattered or covered with
cIouCiC of dust and flies in the flats
Of Fhnders. But the wounded OF
italy are rolled down the winding
reads of the mile-high mountains
with some beauty of verdure still
Green on the fianks. There must be
something good. event o dimmed eyes
In the sight of a high place and a
wide green glacier river, and perhaps
even death is less bitter there.