DESOLATE ANTWERP.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16143, 22 February 1918, Page 8

DESOLATE ANTWERP.

4 lieuter's Agency has received from a Belgian who has recently escaped from Antwerp further details of the conditions in his country. Besides the recent seizure of all metal and woollen, goods, tho Germans are now requisitioning in many parte of Belgium all mahogany furnituro for reasons unknown. Most offices close at four o'clock now to save lighting expenses, and motorcars and the few London General Omnibus Co.'s 'buses that the Germans captured when they took Antwerp havo given place to bullock carts, as there are so few horses. "Things have much changed in the last year," said tho Belgian. "The picture palaces are empty, butchers and confectioners do very little trade at all, and the busiest men are the doctors and undertakers. One doctor I. know, who had been working all night, told me that a prolonged hunt through the butchers' shops produced one small pieco of steak, for which ho was very pleased to pay 18 francs, for his dinner. The principal food is a> thin vegetable soup. "So mauy people of good family have been incarcerated in Antwerp for one reason or another—or, more often, for no reason at all —that the prison in the Rue des Beguines is referred t< as the best hotel in the city."