Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1919-05-16
Conditions Are Bad, But Every
body Wears Flush of
Triumph.
PEOpLERAN1 THEIR TROUBLES
City Left In ShockIngIy Dirty condI-
ton by the Buloars-Few Young
Men In PIace--TubercuIosis
Sweeps Land.


the new Kingdom of the Serbs. Croats
and Slovenes, everybody is flushed
with triumph, confident of the future.
and regards present troubles only as
temporary Inconvenience.
But Belgrade was left In a shocking
ly dirty condition by the Bulgars. The
courtyards of the houses are filled
with refuse. There Is no collection
of garbage because there are no con-
veyances In which to collect 1t. The
shortage of water emphasizes the dan
ger. All the doctors. sanitary authori-
ties and officials are holding their
breath, fearing an epidemic Of some
sort.
IF the Danube freezes (and 1t nearly
always does freeze) the cOmmunica-
ton Of Belgrade with the outside
world will be still further enormously
decreased. The possibility Of bring
ing food and wood up the river will
be removed, and the present very mod
crate resources further enormously de-
pleted.
Run One Train Daily.
There will remain practically only
the one line Of railway, that to Fiume,
through what was Austria but is now
part Of the new kingdom Of the
Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. On ac-
count Of lack of fuel one train day
is operating on this line.
Belgrade Is practically cut of from
the interior Of Serbia because Of de-
struction of the railways and the
shocking condition of the roads. There
are practically no young men in the
city. Those who were within two or
three years of the military age left
with the army In the winter of 1916
16.
They set out to make the retreat
down through Serbia and, as 1t proved,
over the mountains into Albania and
thence to Corfu. Something like one
in seven survived the trip.
There are practically no children
under three in Belgrade or elsewhere
I'm Serbia, for that matter. Midwives
have been in the unemployed class
for the last three years and will be
| for year to come, for the Serbian
army, what remains of 1t, is now In
the occupied part of what was Aus
tria-Hungary.
tuberculosis Sweeps Land.
For no obvious reason, tuberculosis
is the king Of terrors in Belgrade.
A tuberculosis death rate Of $50 per
100000 Is very exceptionally high in
America. Before the war the tuber-
culosis death rate in Belgrade reached
712, and during the Austrian occupa-
ton 1t reached the unheard-of figure Of
1,453.
Before the war Belgrade ap-
| preached hundred thousand I'm popu-
lation. When the Austrians took 1t,
there were 10000. Another 10000
soon came back. At the present time
perhaps It's population may be 10000
or $4,000. Some Of the shops are open,
but nobody seems to be buying any
thing except where food Is sold.
The only autos going about the
streets are those Of the military and
few Of the high government officials.
These are used very sparingly, for
gasoline is almost unobtainable. The
water supply comes from wells and
has to be distributed by a pumping
station.
There are practically no autos, no
gasoline, and no horses, and so every
body walks. The electric current is
turned on late In the afternoon and
turned Off at 10 O'Clock.