The Mellette County pioneer. [volume] (Wood, Mellette County, S.D.) 19??-1971, 1919-03-07
Yankees Build Great
Military Port at Brest
It Has Become Largest and Most
Modern of Debarkation
Points.
SANITATION ALMOST Perfect
Every Facility Is Provided for Car.
ing for Camp Of 10000 Men of
Whom Large Proportion Are
Wounded or Sick-Men
Will Be Fed and
Housed.

ounde or Sick-Men
Will Be Fed and
Housed.
BreSt, France-BreSt, the ancient
town of Finisterre that jutS out into
the Atlantic ocean, is destined to live
long In the memory Of the American
soldiers that came to save the allied
nations from the iron heel of Ger
many. From its ancient ramparts the
people of France will see the last of
the stalwart doughboys that t~raversed
the Atlantic ocean TO aid them in
suppressing the expansion of Teutonic
autocracy, writes Louis Seibold, New
York World correspondent.
During the next eight or nine
months more than 100000 Of the
100000 fighting men that were sent
by the United States to vindicate the
principles Of democracy will find their
way through Brest back TO their
homes. Consequently, the Brest that
knew the legionS of Caesar and the
deeds Of the ~Phoenicians will always
figure prominently in the historic mar
bark to recount their deeds on Eu-
rOpean soil.
City Not Much to Look At.
Brest is not very much to look at.
The most striking thing about it is
It's mud. 1t is a sort Of mud that
sticks TO ones memory as well as to
ones clothes.
There is no other mud in the world
like that Of Brest. 1t is always pres
ent, for, with the exception of a very
few days during the year, the low
ering skies of bleak Finisterre are
m~omentarily f%reshening up, because 1t
always seems to rain in FiniSterre.
AT first it is disagreeable, this mud
of BreSt, but, like other things in life,
familiarity breeds contempt for it and
inures one to the disadvantages of
always having it about ones person.
One of the bravest spectacles to be
witnessed, with the mist that nearly
always cOnceals the sun and fertil-
ICES the mud, is that provided by the
American girls, who now number sew
eral thousand, that have come over
e to administer to the wants of
the American boys who have come to
fight for Americas principles. Some
Of these girls, gently reared and more
accustomed to luxuries than to pri-
walton, have become so accustomed to
the mud that it is difficult to dis
sociate them from memory of IT.
Recalls the Golden Gate.
Brest is a natural port. This Is
the precise term employed by the
technical men Of the army and navy.
Coming in from the Atlantic, trans
ports eastern bound enter the grim
rocked harbOr, whose outside aspects
are not dissimilar to those Of the
a. valuable marine terminus, which
the French have used for many cen
turtles i'm which to shelter from the
depredations of the. hostile fleets that
preyed upon it's commerce.
There is deep water through the
gate and i'm the harbOr itself, which
spreads fanlike in an almost corr
plete oval, confined by ramparts that
rise from 100 to 800 feet along the
shore lines.
The United States engineers and
marine experts, after comparing the
advantages OF other harbOrs, decided
that Brest was best suited to the pur-
pose of the western democracy asked
to transport it's fighting men to assist
in the crushing of Germany. In all
the population of the venerable
Breton town is about $4,000. The ne
cessities OF war have doubled this,
and at intervals it becomes three
times as much. But the influx of
population with the restless and i'm
patient Americans has exercised lit
tie influence on the ancient burg.
The city's hotel accommodations are
just as primitive as they were a CEN
fury ago, with the exception that there
are now electric lights instead of tai
low dips in one OF the hosteIries and
an elevator which groans under the
weight or w persons.
Other than that things are pretty
much as they were before. Ancient
forms and customs prevail generally
to the Inconvenience OF the energetic
American and provide excellent ma.
terial for moving picture artists. The
water s~upply-the n paramount
problem to be solved by the American
e~ngineerS-is obtained by ancient
processes. There Is no sewerage sys-
TEN. The suggestion.o of making one for
Brcst as they have provided at Ha-
vaha and Manila nearly precipitated a
revolution.
Why Waste Useful Material?
A new sewerage system was all
right in it's way, declared the leading
citizens of Brest, whose ancestors run
back 10 the time OF the Roman ware