Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1917-08-30
YOUNG MAN
TELLS De TRIP,
FRENCH CAPITAL
Finds Ocean Passage Enjoyable
Farming Is Intensive---Many
Crippled Men in the Fields

w. G. Kirchoffer, of Madison, sani-
tary and hydraulic engineer, and for
many years resident of Baraboo, has
rereived two letters from his brother
in-law, E. e. Browning, who had in
turn received them from the writer,
his brother, somewhere in France. Mr..
Browning is in the American ambu-
lance field service. Before yoing
abroad he was senior in Cornell Ag-
ricultural college, volunteering in the
Cornell unit.
LETTER NO. 1
"This is my first letter to you all
since my arrival in Paris. My last let
ter home was written on the boat
from which we landed without event.
! shall never forget the last morning
en- board. / climbed out of bed early
IN order to be on deck when the boat
arrived in sight of land. When got
up on deck, through the mist could be
seen indistinctly the shore line, which
in an hour became a mass OF green
landscape. After eleven days Of moth
ing but water in motion, it was the
greatest relief to the eyes to see land
again. Soon we were in the harbor
feasting our eyes on the beautiful
farms and hamlets which ran down to
the waters edge not over one hundred
yards away. By noon we were UP the
harbor as far as the tide would let us
go, waiting for higher tide before
proceeding to Bordeaux; away again
at A D. M, arriving at the end of our
Journey at 10 o'clock Wednesday
night AS the hotels were nearly all
filed. we remained On the boat all
night.
The Train Service
"In the morning we barely had time
to breakfast and send few cards be-
fore our train left for Paris. did
not, therefore, have time to see much
of Bordeaux. The trains and train
service here are far superior to what
had imagined they would be. First
class engines, good though crude
coaches made up of s. to ten passen-
ger compartments. Ten of Ills climbed
into one of these in a second-class
coach, and we were off The govern
ment took us up, SO as we travelled
free of charge, we, saw nothing OF the
conductor all the way up.
1.-THE trip was without exception the
most beautiful and interesting that I
have ever taken. All of France e
wearing it's spring coat. The farms
run right up to the tracks, with the
fields full of laborers- most1y women.
The few men seen were either. or p
pied, wounded, or too old for army
service. Most of the traction on the
farms is done by oxen; more so now I
understand. as the horses all go to the
front
"The farmsteads, though humble, are
as neat as pins. Gardens come up to
the door; no space is wasted. All OF
the houses are of stone, or a kind of
mud plaster, and all the houses on
farms and in the little towns have red
tile roofs. One feels on passing
through the country that he is con
stantly in a mamoth old-fashioned gar
den, so neat and quiet and beautiful
is everyth ng. Some of the boys
played cards all Of the way up.
couldn't leave the window for the
beauty of the scene gripped me from
the moment we left Bordeaux.
After nine too short hours we ar
rived in Paris at dusk, and were TAX
en- at once to headquarters, tired, dirty
(they use soft coal on the railroads),
but glad to get where we could get
something under the belt and a clean
bed. 81 Rue Raynouard was full to ca
pacity, as was the overflow on Rue
Lekain, but they had rented good
sized chapel next to the house on Rue
Lekain, and arranged twenty-five cots
in rows there. About twenty Of the
Cornell bunch, including myself, pick
ed cots there, and yours truly went at
once to bed to sleep the sleep of the
just
A Comfortable Camp
ct is a mighty comfortable camp.
w SOL UEOdhIdASI at ING AAOd0S AiS-A1
door on Lekain, and the other meals
at headquarters on Raynouard. The
food is excellent and we could not be
treated better. Headquarters is fine
old mansion given for the duration OF
the war by the owners to the Ameri-
can field service. 1t backs on to a
beautiful park, sloping down to the
Seine, the existence of which would
not BIS suspected from look at the
grim, homely appearance of the front
of the house on Raynouard. The in
terror, though now bare of carpets and
expensive furniture, suggests gran
deur Great halls and stairways, a
beautiful pane1ed dining room, and i'm
posing terrares in the rear, all fit in
with ones impressions derived from