The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-02-19
Grave-Digging Impossible In
Frozen Ground and Bodies
Wait Disposal.
CARLOADS OF CORPSES
Twenty-Five Thousand Cases Re-
ported Between Omsk and
the Ural Mountains

VLADIVOSTOK, Jan. IL, Delay
ed.)-There are approximately $4,000
cases of typhus in Ekaterinburg,
Cheliabinsk, and Omsk, according to
Major "Jack" Reifsnider, who has just
returned from a two months trip in
charge of Red Cross relief train.
Russian authorities, as well as the
American Red Cross, are doing their
best to check the spread of the dis
ease; but in view of the overcrowded
conditions in all cities and towns, their
task is a desperate one. An average
of ten new cases daily is being taken
from the railway station in Ekaterin-
burg, where refugees, spectators, and
homeless people genrally are packed
together.
Diseases, starvation, and the rigor
Gus climate, besides the sporadic
fighting along the western front, pile
up the dead faster than they can be
disposed of. Grave digging in the
The bodies are loaded into cars and
hauled out on the line for such dis
position apparently as occurs to the
railway officials Beside DR.. R.. B..
Teusler's Red Cross train in the yards
at Ekaterinburg lay for days a train
partly made up of carloads of bodies
awaiting shipment.
A 450-bed hospital established by
the Red Cross in Tiumen is well filled
and is doing a great service to the
afflicted population. In spite of eff
forts to keep free from :typhus cases,
one occasionally DEVELOPS Typhus
patients are removed as soon as the
symptoms develop to Russian isola-
ton hospital. 1t was in this hospital
that the unfortunate American nurse,
Grace Mcbride, died of the disease.
A Russian typhus hospital in Elk
aterinburg contained hundreds of pa
tients with practically no sanitary az
rangements for caring for them, and
with a most deplorable want of any
sort of management. Patients lay in
rows on filthy floor in an unventil-
ated room whose pitch darkness was
only slightly relieved by candles here
and there.
Next to the need for medicines, and
medical help; conditions throughout
Western Siberia call for clothing sup
plies. Many refugees are well sup
piled with funds, but are in rags be-
cause of the scarcity of clothing or
material out of which to make gar
ments. An example of the avidity
with which anything capable is being
converted into wearing apparel, while
not conclusive in these days of law
lessness and destruction, was related
by Major Reifsnider.
A passenger coach which was turn
ed over for the use of the Red Cross
in Omsk had formerly been occupied
by Russian General. Just before
the Red Cross contingents acquired
it the car had been left for few
hours unguarded in railway yard.
In that interval it had been entered
and every inch Of the plush upholstery,
with the exception of the compart-
ment where the General lodged and
which chanced to be locked, had been
cut away and taken, the theory being
that it was stolen for the purpose
of making clothing.
While conditions are undoubtedly
about as bad as can be imagined all
along the line of the Trans-Siberian
the tendency among new observers
say those who know Russia, is to ex-
aggerate them and to surround the
whole with an atmosphere of senti-
mentality which is not deserved.
A fair percentage of so-called re-
fugees are in reality spectators who
are intent upon getting into the In
terror to sell what they can carry
in evil-lool<ing packs at fancy profits
According to recent arrivals, Manchu-
ria Station, Chita, and other stations
contingent to Manchuria are fillec
with these men. A story was related
of one refugee" who carried sam.
sovar which attracted the attention OF
an American traveller He offered z
goodly price for it but the possessol
refused to sell; on the contrary he
offered to buy from the would be pur-
chaser some of the old-issue Russian
currency at a bonus of * nos. cont