The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1918-04-21

Sometimes the journeys end re-
minds one of the fairies, AS when
refuge Was found for ], 900 Belgain
children in the famous old monastery
OF La Grande Chartreuse. near
Limoges The climate there IS won
derful." say the Red Cross workera
Roses bloom all rhe year round
There is plenty Of fresh running water
The buildings are Guperhly placed -
Rut the little refugees of France
and Belgium and Serbia and the other
stricken countries have not al found
sIrh journeys end. Dir William Pal
mer Lucas professor of pet3iatr1cs Of
the University Of California, on leave,
chief OF tho children's bureau of the
American Red Cross in France, Is
authority Tor tho statement that
probably at no time IN the history OF
II o world has there been such a wide -
spread condition OF underfeedirrg and
poor nutrition az now exists in A very
large proportion Of renCh Children
EhEhty thousand babies died in France
last year. of whom 10000 could have
been saved with proper care.
One of the greatest problems in
France. rs obviously, to care for these
little ones, France has lost prActi-
cally one-third of her men. and II her
children are not preserved, and made
strong and ahle-bodied, then hey future
is very dark But France needs all
her grown strength now 20 hold back
the epemy's Tine that Is ready 10 surge
through at any break.
SO 1t rs partly for the sake of the
future of France, that Americans are
proud to maintain the work OF the
childrens bureau of tho Red Cross
but there ia also tho individual. tender
formerly Of Johns Hopkins university,
and now serving with the Red Cross
IN France, with two nurses and an
aide. went TO one Of the ruined towns
to which the people stin cling, il re-
quired not only many days of the
hardest kind of physical labor under
tho most difficult living conditions
SCrubblng, cleaning, trucking, carry
ing water and coal, but every human
resource Of patience, Kindness. tact.
and cooperation. to establish a little
linked hospital Finally the little
wards were ready for the first cases
and then Or. Baldwin wrote in his
weekly report:
arc so thankful this first little child
Ks worth the whole effort"
Last August, Moneieur Mirman. the
great hearted prefeCt of the district
OF Meurthe- eli Moselle, gather together
$50 children and fifty mothers from
gassed and bombed villages where
they had been living in the most
dreadful and pitiful ways. some of
them in cellars and in the ruins of
houses
These children wrote DR. Afbex+
Parker Fitch, mad no proper shelter
for two winters They had no proper
food TO eat. ] saw children the tops
of whose heads were hard with dirt
and verrnin; and I saw children who
were frightened out If their wits
that is not a rhetorical phrase to me
any more--tney had been frightened
out OF their wits by shell shot, and by
the horrid things they had seen behind
the battle front--and who had a ter
rible, dazed, discouraged look IN the
eye and Qtzfvered and shook. :"
There are thousands of these chill
dren, everywhere behind the French
line you come across thenl-chIldren
whose fathers are either killed or are
fighting in the army, or are prisoners in
Germany, or they were lost when the
army swept across that doomed land
back and forth in the early DAVIS of
the invasion.
The American Red Cross and the
fund for French wounded