The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1918-01-04
Views DesoIation Wrought BY
War on Flanders Battle
Front.
Town, Which Has Been Through Two
Great HeIls and Many Lesser
Ones, 10 Symbol Of Tragedy
Of Belgium.

| war last7
The best answer to this question
heard along the FLANDERS battle front
by Prof. George Herbert Clarke, who
has returned to the chair Of English
at the University of Tennessee, was
by South African, who remarked re.
fiectively: "Well, sir, 1 can't rightly
say; but 1t looks to me as though this
ere war as settled down now into q
sort of instichooshun."
Professor Clarke ventured to ask
the question all along the firing line,
How long is piece of string?" re-
tOrted an English statesman.
"A certain major did me the honor
to invite my own conjecture" Profess
sOr Clarke says, land, still better,
agreed with it; but l found, for the
most part, the expected wide diver
sity of opinion"
Another interesting question arose
on board ship during Professor
Clarke's return from Europe: Is a
ship safer than the trenches? Ger
tain Canadian officers on the boat ar
gued the negative of the question but
the university professor was stanch
for the affirmative.
Less Danger in Trenches.
Canadian officers said that there
was less danger in trenches because
shells seldom struck the trenches, and
the shot usually went over the heads
of the men. But Professor Clarke was
Of the opinion that there is less risk
in a ship on the ocean, even though
the kaiser's sea sharks, submarines,
menace vessels, and should n boat lie
torpedoed, it would probably not be
long until passengers were bound for
Davy Jones' locker, even if they were
in lifeboats Or life savers.
The desolated town of Ypres was
visited by Professor Clarke while in
Iation has been deeply touched by the
tragedy of Belgium" he says, land,
with the exception of its brutal prOtag-
onists, all the world shares that pity.
"Ypres is its symbol. The towns
body is denuded, dead. 1t has been
through two great hells and many les
ser ones, but its soul lives on, intact.
The town mayor impressed me as pre-
cisely the type Of man TO govern Ypres
today. He is its military mayor, a
sort of father-and-mOther to Ypres,
a brave, broad-shOuldered Cornishman,
who has risen from the ranks. and
who administers the affairs of his
ruined borough with a pride and zeal
that are not short of beautiful. He is
not wholly obsessed by military val
ues; he does not wish the visitor to
miss the rare places of YpreS that are
still, in their grim settling, more or
less visible.
gian to discover his little hoard of
francs that had been buried in the
town during the first bombardment.
He shows firm judgment and instant
sympathy as each is needed. If Ypres
is Belgium, he-English as he isis
Ypres: brave. steady, enduring and
confident. Looking up whimsically at
q shell that seemed to me to burst
uncomfortably near (but then, they
all sounded like that) he remarked:
'Ah, high explosive; l thought as
much. Perhaps you had better be
going now And we went with sense
of abiding regard for this sturdy SOL
der, while deafening crash close by
announced that the British guns had
something urgent TO say to the enemy,
something that could not wait"
A Dantean Desolation.
The word Somme similarly has ex-
banded lingo novel and grotesque
symbol, Professor Clarks says. For
the SOmme is Dantean desolatiOn,
extending mile beyond mile-a DESC
lation or splintered tree trunks
stripped, woebegone boughs, churned
up subsoils that look like plague spots
upon the corpse of sSrth. / thought
of Coleridge's 'rotting sea- The adj
jective is pale and ineffective here.
thought of Browning's 'Childe Ro-
land"
But there Is another side to the
Somme picture brisk movement at
the appropriate spots is not wanting, |
as there Is distant train hauling its
freight; German prisoners working the |
roads; Tommy at his endless fatigue |
jobs; guns volleying overhead; the |
army service corps. carrying on" with
its never-ceasing string of numbering |
lorries; and, perhaps most completely |
diverting Of all, the momentary APP |
pearance of Kentucky mule on the |
skyline, tossing his heels in an aban-
doned ecstacy.
Professor Clarke was connected with |
the intelligence department Of the |
British war office in the war zone.