Free trader-journal. (Ottawa, Ill.) 1916-1920, 1919-08-08
BY MARY hEAToN WORSE.


life. In the streets which We're lined
with closed shops, every day Il new
shutter Is pulled up The peasant
women come IN again as they did be-
fore the war to buy cloth and a silk
handkerchief with long fringe for
their heads.
To the people who have been here
from the first, 1t is place full Of
life, u normal town. But If one ar
rives as II stranger aud is ferried
across from Semlin in II steamer fun
Of soldiers, peasants and poultry Il
boat piled mast-high with yariegated
luggage, Belgrade seems wounded
place.
II sits up on high promontory
Below 1t in Il great curve sweeps the
Sava 10 pour its waters into those OF
the Danube on its reach down to the
sea. There was never Il finer place
for an imperial city to place itself
with the two great rivers circling
more than half way around 1t and the
wide fields and the level valley lands
stretched out to the horizon. So wide
IL the river that when 1t oyertioWs and
floods the meadows one has the iin-
preston Of overlooking the sea.
But Belgrade was never an imperial
city. 1t wanted to be however ana
put up big ministries of war and build
ed itself palace for It's kings, There
was perhaps time when the stucco
was new and the paint and lamen-
tation fresh When Austria sent
across her diplomats to intrigue and
there was gayety in Belgrade 1t may
have given the Illusion of city of
the western world. But 1t gives no
such illusion today.
Idle for Six Years
War showed it up, War swept over
the country and for six years nothing
has been done. For six years no
hand has been lifted to complete the
pretentious new hotels which then
We're being built, to make repairs or
to plaster up the spots where shells
have cracked the stucCo off the walls.
For nearly four of those six years Bel
grade was in the hands of the enemy.
For weeks 1t was under shell fre.
Here aud there Is small house with
u crushed roof, d building with Wall
Knocked in and buildings that have no
glass la the windows.
Throughout the whole city there Is
q sense OF dislocution. Life Is out or
Joint. The hotels are full and when
one finally locates room 1t is miles
from the place where meal can be
gotten Water Is brought up stingiy
to ones room In small enamel pitch
err. The Austrians ia leaving destroyed
all OF the plumbing of Belgrade-de-
Stroyed It Systematically they
wrenched the pipes and threw cement
and bricks into the drains.
And as the plumbing is SO is all OF
the exstence--a little out OF plump,
slightly askew. All over the city
there is u general air of dilapidat'on
as though the people were still dazed
and tired from the repeated wars.
What might be called Main street
sweeps up through the center OF the
town with ii grand gesture, 1t passes
by the ministry of war, an ostentatlous
orange coored building, and the
guarded palace where the last Of the
Obrenoytch, the king and queen, were
stabbed to death by their officers. 1t
is n wide street tlanked with cream
colored buildings. On one side II
passes two pretentious hotels vaguely
oriental in architecture and ip color.
They never have been finished. war
came and put an end to building IN
Belgrade The street is well paved
and unused car tracks run down IT..
II Belgrade did not achieve IA Paris
ian air, as 1t evidently wished to
achieve, at least it must have given
the illusion before the war, OF u