glimpse of destruction, in the ruin of the famous old château where Jeanne d'Arc was once a prisoner. On the right of the village church is an aviators' cemetery with a central monument of two airplane propellers, forming a big cross. Two of the graves were decorated with American flags.

At Chauny, a town of twelve thousand inhabitants, you pass block after block of the most complete desolation. Every house mined systematically, not one standing; beds, with desks and chairs, sticking out from the ruins. All the bridges have been blown up, and temporarily rebuilt. At one of these the French sentry stands in a German sentry box still painted black and white.

We passed several ruins with a wisteria vine in full bloom clinging to a piece of wall, or peonies growing in what was once a garden. Nothing is left but flowers-that is the most pathetic part of it. They grow just the same; reminding you that not long ago people lived happily there.

We passed orchards of fruit trees, cut by the Germans on the ground that they afforded protection for batteries. Some of the trees were still in bloom and many have been grafted by the French Engineers in the hope of saving them. It is marvelous how the French Army thinks of everything. As we came up a hill we passed a sign: Gaz, meaning that unless we had masks with us we should go no farther. A little beyond was another sign: Éteignez vos phares (Put out your lights), and at the top of the hill, Cette pointe est vue de l'ennemi, n'arrettez pas (This point is in sight of the enemy. Do not stop). We came around a hill, in full view of the ruins of the wonderful castle of Coucy. The Lords of Coucy were so proud that their motto was Roi ni suis, ni Prince, ni Duc aussi. Je suis le sire de Coucy." The hillside is now a mass of dust colored stone, impressive still by its tremendous size. (Neither King, nor Prince, nor Duke am I. I am the Sire of Coucy.) The hillside is now a mass of dust colored stone, impressive still by its tremendous size. The soldiers told The Germans used 60,000 pounds of dynamite to raze the dungeon alone. At the top of the hill we were stopped, and the sentry told us that the Germans were in the woods about three miles away.

Our first consignment of cases is unpacked and everything arranged in the shop within easy reach for repacking when called for by the

hospitals. We visited hospitals to-day. Our first was the Evacuating Hospital in Noyon of seven hundred beds, all in tents or temporary barracks. This is the first one of its kind I have ever been through, and it is wonderfully interesting especially the "auto-chir" half. That is fascinating, and consists of motor trucks which carry the electric power, X-ray machine, tent, portable operating room, and some tents with beds. They move with the army and can be ready to work at the new station in two days. In most of the hospitals the demand seems to be the same for the standard things; extra surgical instruments, rubber gloves, hot water bottles and pajamas. They never have enough pajamas; the men have to leave them when they are transferred, which hurts them terribly. They love, especially, light pink and blue ones. Saturday there was to be a concert in the evening and we took fifty pink and blue pajamas to the hospital that afternoon. When we came back for the concert the nurse told us that the men had spent all afternoon choosing which color was the most becoming. The lucky fifty were so proud when they were carried. into the concert tent that they would hardly let the stretcher bearers put the blankets over them, for fear of covering up their new clothes. The others, for we only had enough for two wards, looked on with great envy, as first a pink and then a blue stretcher went by, each occupant making himself as conspicuous as possible. One boy of eighteen with a fractured hip-the baby of the ward (though twice the size of any of the men)-chose pink and was promptly named Le Bébé Rose, much to his embarrassment.

DEAR FATHER:

Monday we went beyond Roye. There were shell holes one after the other in a line right across an orchard, and right in the middle of the trenches. They certainly had the range that time! The road had shell holes in it which have not yet been filled in, and at some places there was hardly room for the motor to pass. This is the first time we have seen a road that was not perfectly repaired, and it was extremely interesting. We went into the trenches a little ways, but the only things that we saw were hand grenades, which we had the sense not to touch. We motored over to Vaubin, near Soissons, to visit a hospital. On this road again we crossed part of what

used to be "no-man's land" and had a very good idea of the battle line of France. Over the rolling country stretches the almost endless zig-zag of trenches, whitened now by the sun, like some huge prehistoric skeleton lying in a mass of grass and barbed wire. Sometimes a line of poppies cross the field, giving a very vivid picture, as they seem to thrive best on this newly upturned soil of the trench tops. We passed hundreds of big trucks, returning from the front beyond Soissons, where they had taken infantry reserves, among them some of the famous Senegalese, the black attacking troops of France. The drivers were white. with dust and very tired. Over each man hung his rifle, gas mask and canteen; and where there were two men, one was always sleepingsitting up and swaying from side to side as if he would fall any minute.

DEAR FATHER:

We are much interested in the people who have come back to their ruined homes, and are using all our spare time looking up and helping them in every way we can. We met the Prefect of Ham and St. Quentin, who is greatly absorbed in his work and was delighted to find someone else who wanted to help. He came for us in his military motor one morning, and, after lunching at the prefecture, took us on a wonderful ride to the ruined villages between Ham and St. Quentin. We went within six kilometres of the Cathedral. He told us that the Germans were looking at us from their observation post in the Cathedral tower, but that they evidently did not think we were worth firing at. One of the English Quakers went with us, as they are planning to build fifty portable houses in five of those towns, and I think that the Prefect hoped we would become interested enough to fit out the people who would come back to live in those houses. The Quakers have specialized in this work both in this war and the war of 1870 and are in complete accord with the French Government which gives them every facility, especially in the matter of transportation, which is the most difficult problem in that work. Their mills are in the Vosges where the timber is cut and the sections put together. And, thanks to the Government, they are able to ship their material with comparative ease. The houses cost 1200 francs for two rooms, and more for larger houses.

There is another line in which the Quakers

are working; it is the reroofing of houses still standing, solid but without roofs, the roofs having been blown off by the upward explosion of the mine. If after examination the Quakers find that the keystone of the cellar arch, and certain other parts are true, they consider the house worth reroofing. If such a house is reroofed before the frost of the coming winter sets in, it will be as good as new; otherwise the frost, getting between the bricks, will crack the walls and the house will be ruined. If the roof can be put on such a house now, it will not only be saving the extra expense of building a whole portable house, but will save the Government both time and money in rebuilding the house after the war. And, best of all, it will give the poor old souls who come back, the wonderful surprise of being able to live and die in their old home.

Thursday we went out to Ollezy. This is the last town with anything standing so the Major told me. From there on there is not a house. People who have come back to see what was left of their homes have not been able even to find where their street was, much less their house. Everything has been mined or smashed with a ram. The lovely château, with priceless Fifteenth Century tapestries and other beautiful things, and surrounded by a beautiful park, is now a mass of ruins. The trees are all cut and everything portable has been taken away except the tapestries, which instead of sending to Germany they used as rugs, wearing holes in them and ruining them. The Major told us that the soldiers had found sacks full of dead dogs and cats, addressed to people in Germany, and left behind in the retreat, which looks as if they might be hard up for fats.

We started to help the people in the tiny town of Behericourt, a few miles from Noyon. There were one hundred and twenty inhabitants, but the war has reduced them to seventyfive. They have had no help. As we went from house to house we heard the most pitiful stories of their life during the occupation. They all needed clothes, not having had any since the war began. since the war began. We looked for their kitchen utensils, hoping to find that they had saved some, but all that the Germans could not take they had shot holes through. They had been evacuated to Noyon in February for a month, while the soldiers pillaged their houses. What they could carry, besides three days' food and blankets, was very little, as they were all under fifteen or over sixty years old.

Before they left, all between those ages were told to be at the château at a certain time with their bundles to go to Germany to work. Twelve girls and thirty-two men (the number of men was due to the Germans advancing before their regiments had been called out) went away; the women with little children were allowed to stay, but their husbands were forced to go. We asked them what they needed most and the answer was always the same, "Give us news of our children, and we can get along." It is over three months since they have gone, and not a person has had a word. The uncertainty is driving them mad, but they still cling to the forlorn hope that these children will come back after the harvest, as the Germans said. Everyone has at least one member of the family missing. One old woman of seventy-five, deaf and partly blind, her daughter gone, is trying to live on in her house where every table, chair, cupboard, and the stove are broken-not taken for firewood, as only a leg, a door, or a drawer is gone.

We have been into every house in the village, and it was always the same-the most systematical destruction of everything that they could not carry away. Mattresses were slit up and thrown out of doors, every pane of glass is broken, which makes a tremendous problem for the Government this winter, as it is very cold there. They are trying substitutes of oiled cloth which keep the wind out, but let in no light. There is a Japanese paper which they say would be good, but it cannot be had in large enough quantities, and glass is, of course, out of the question. All the beautiful handwoven linen sheets of which they were so proud are in Germany. One woman carried her ten pair to Noyon instead of food, and is now the proudest woman in the village. Of course, all the agricultural implements are gone. The Germans did not stop at the general destruction of household things, but went into the little individual details, and as they had lived two and a half years with these people they knew very well where they could hurt them most.

Mme. Muselle, one of the most charming old ladies I have ever met, is seventy-five years old. She told us that her husband died at

sixty-five, "so very young!" Four of her grandsons are fighting for France; one has been killed. She had their pictures in a row on her mantel. When she came back from Noyon the picture of the one killed had been torn and partly burned; the others were unharmed. She had a prayer book-"Mon Livre," as she called it the only book she could see to read as it is printed in huge type. She used to sit at her door and read it. She could not find it when she came back and was very distressed, as it had a prayer for every morning and every evening. On cleaning up the yard she found it under a pile of filthy straw, badly stained and almost illegible. Her only bonnet, which she wore to mass, was in the same place. She goes to the woods every day to gather faggots, and had a big dull knife with which she cut them down. The wooden handle of that knife was burned so that she could not get a grip on it. Her stove was smashed and she cooks on a pot hanging over an open fire. As she has nothing to cut the faggots with, she lays them across the room in opposite directions and pushes them in as they burn. In spite of all this, she is still able to see the bright side of life, and we often saw her sitting on a soap box (though she has a fine new chair she is afraid of hurting) reading her "book" in the evening after a hard day's work in her garden.

There was great excitement last night; full moon and a boche airplane over Noyon. I was out walking about ten P. M. with my companion when an airplane, so low that it looked like a huge black beetle, flew slowly over our heads and then the most awful crash! We were fascinated, and stood in the middle of the street watching as the 75s and mitrailleuses started full blast. The soldiers pulled us against a house, saying we might get hit with the pieces of shrapnel which were falling from the shells all the time.

All the searchlights were playing and finally one caught the airplane so well that you could see the cross on the underside of the wings. It did not bother him, and he took his time, dropping two incendiary bombs and then flew slowly off. I never expected to hear the 75s as close as that, though we had heard the mitrailleuses quite close before.

The Log of a Field Representative of the Red Cross Who Visited Alaska to Establish Chapters and

D

URING the week of the War Fund drive, the territory of Alaska evinced a patriotism and generosity in its contributions out of all proportion to the amount of organization work that had been done there. Thousands of dollars were raised in places where no organization had even been contemplated, and the enthusiasm shown in many parts made it appear that their spirit of patriotism and generosity should, if possible, be made more effective by perfecting organizations in the leading towns. For this reason, Mr. John L. Clymer, of the Pacific Division, suggested that I pay a visit to that territory at the first possible opportunity and spend such time there during August and September as the prospective results would justify.

When I stepped off the gang-plank on to the dock at Ketchikan, the first port of entry in Alaska, and found my hand lost in the cordial grip of a college friend and by him was successively introduced to the Mayor and the leading business men of that busy little town, I felt that this welcome indeed presaged a successful trip.

It would be superfluous to cover the details of our conference, but the outcome was the establishing of a Ketchikan Chapter with jurisdiction over southeastern Alaska, south of 56° North Latitude, and with practically every man and woman of prominence assuring the new organ

Organize the Workers Throughout the Peninsula

BY

ROBERT H. SCOTT

ization of full and immediate cooperation and support.

At Wrangell, our next stop, as in Ketchikan, the leading people have interested themselves with gratifying enthusiasm in the work, and they have an organization which is producing creditable results. The town has a population of 800 and from this population alone, supplemented by the assistance rendered by a few adjoining camps, they have a present membership in excess of 650. This is certainly a record worthy of emulation by some of our more complacent Chapters south of the 49th Parallel.

Arriving at Juneau, the Capital city, I was introduced to the Manager of the Goodyear Rubber Company for the Northwest Territory, F. S. West, who had just returned from a tour along the Yukon River, through the interior, and from him learned that a visit to the interior would not be justified, owing to its remoteness and the lateness of the season.

THE FOUR DIVISIONS OF ALASKA

He explained that Alaska would fall into four main divisions for purposes of administration; Southeastern, Southwestern, Interior and the Nome District. The two former divisions I personally visited; the

two latter will of necessity be handled by correspondence. In addition to these there is a small, somewhat isolated district, known as the Iditarod District. The Interior Division embraces the points along the Yukon and

Tanana rivers, the principal one being Fairbanks, an incorporated town with a present population of about 5,000, engaged in gold placer mining. About 500 acres of the soil is under cultivation and while excellent crops are obtained from the land now under development, there appear to be certain natural limitations to development along this line, the chief of these being the prohibitive expense of shipment of these products to the outside world. Nenana, a short distance from Fairbanks, is a government railroad town under the jurisdiction of the Railroad Commission. Its population this Summer was about 1,000 but with the decision on the part of the Government to defer the completion of the road between Anchorage and Fairbanks until the close of the war, its future population is problematic. Tanana is merely a transfer point with a population of about 200. Ruby, 120 miles below Tanana, is a supply point for several gold placer mines of that vicinity and has a population of about 500. The other points along the Yukon are Fort Yukon, Circle, Eagle and Rampart, none of which exceeds 50 to 100 whites. The entire division will be covered by the Tanana Valley Chapter which has already effected a temporary organization and has a membership of several thousand.

Nome is an incorporated town of about 2,500 engaged in gold placer mining, and will be the headquarters of a Chapter embracing the camps of Council, Galovin, Salmon, Teller, Kewallak, Deering and Dime Creek.

The Iditarod District is a small, isolated district embracing the towns of Iditarod and Flat with a total population not exceeding 1,000. These districts of the interior, the Iditarod and Nome, are handicapped by their isolation and although the lines of communication are satisfactorily maintained during the summer months, they receive only first-class mail in Winter and must pay a toll of 25 cents per pound for shipments by express.

From the 2nd to the 19th of August, I visited the towns of southeastern Alaska.

JUNEAU'S GREAT WORK

The Chapter at Juneau was established before I arrived and is effectively handling a principal part of the territory in the northern section of southeastern Alaska. The present membership is in excess of 2,000, with a highly creditable proportion of life members. Eighteen boxes of surgical dressings and two boxes

of miscellaneous supplies have already been sent to the Supply Service warehouse and materials are now on hand for 200 additional pairs of pajamas. From thirty to forty women meet in their workrooms two or three times a week to prepare these supplies and their efforts are admirably supplemented by the untiring efforts of about seventy-five others who carry on the work in their homes. A First Aid class was just graduating as I left and the Finance Committee informed me that their campaign for Chapter funds was being met with a hearty response, the Alaska-Gastineau mine alone having 187 miners who have agreed to contribute not less than $1.00 per month during the period of the war.

Across the channel from Juneau, the Douglas-Treadwell Chapter is maintaining a Chapter in the face of a disheartening occurrence at the time of their organization. On the 28th of last April, the two towns represented a thriving mining community and with the joy of patriotism and prospective success, they organized a Chapter that afternoon. At midnight the same night, came the great cave-in. A mine which had been producing millions of revenue and employing from 750 to 1,000 men, had been undermined too far and in a few minutes' time the walls gave way, completely demolishing the mine and filling its ramifications with sea water. The tide now ebbs and flows through the shafts and into the "glory hole" which once meant so much for the prosperity of the town.

Leaving Juneau on the S. S. Spokane, I visited Haines, Skagway, Sitka and returned to Ketchikan to complete my work there. These first three are small towns of limited resources but they are carrying on the work of the Red Cross with remarkable enthusiasm.

Returning from Ketchikan, we touched for a few moments again at Wrangell, where our boat was greeted with a surprising welcome. It was explained to us, however, that this was not to be considered personal, but gastronomical, rather. The citizens of Wrangell had been without fresh meat for five days prior to our arrival and, as the Editor of the Wrangell Sentinel said, "they were certainly getting hungry."

It appeared advisable to go direct to Anchorage, the farthest point westward in southwestern Alaska, so the following Saturday I sailed for that port. We passed by many remarkable glaciers running down to the Gulf