PITIFUL WRECKAGE OF THE WAR.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1722, 12 April 1913, Page 15

PITIFUL WRECKAGE OF THE WAR.

VANISHED FAMILIES. ' ' It is a sad experience to go to one of the military hospitals in Constantinople and watch the soldiers who were brought . in there three months ago shattered with shrapnel or Mannlicher bullets from Lulo Burgas or Chataljn, leaving tlio placo as cured (writes Mr.-C. Ward Price in the "Daily Mail"), ■ \ - They are drawn up in tho entranco hall for a last inspection by tho medical oilicer in chargo of the hospital. Some have been fitted out with new peasant clothes,usually by a foreign charitablo fundi others wear their rough Icliaki uniform. Hero is a man whose left arm ends in a stump at the wrist. He is crying quiet-ly;-tears have an odd look on that tough, wrinkled face with its shaggy fritigo of hoard. He came in with six wounds from shrapnel bullets and tho doctors say that ho.-has made a marvellous recovery. Clean living, sober, strong, with the peasant's lack of'any nerves to suffer from tho pain and shock, ho lias lived through what would have killed a Euro- , pean soldier twice over. With the smashed leg, from which ho will hobble all tho rest of his days, ho crawled thirty ; miles from where-ho was hit at Lule Burgas to tho field hospital at Chorlu. Hut now ho is crying, because, as Bo; says, he would rather they had let him die. ' The doctor pats Jho grizzled follow on ; tho shoulder like la child, ,but -.tho tears still" stand in-Mphmed's eyes;', ■'-'Where is ho to go?.-ho asks.''.How is ho to live? . 'Ho, holds out his stulnp of ail arm. -110 can never hold a spado or guido a plough, again. - "You must go. to your friends; they will look after you," says , tho doctor encouraginglys. Hp has 110 friends and 110 family now,, he answers. His-little "farm , .;w;a§fKirk-Kilisse':.7 He, left. it with! his ;and three, children. Where aro-they;'.now?' They must havo filled what they could and-fl<jd,'-4eavihg-thc rest to tlw Bulgarians;;! like:'",hH'';thp 'others. -' What , has ibeoomo; of, them sine® then, ho I'jvill never know.'' ;... ' Did they; die of Vant land exposure on tho way? ■■ Did they Imeet" a woi;so fate ' ;at_:tho. hands .of . Bulgarian peasants,, rejoicing in opportunities of revenge" on defenceless Turks? Did'tho cholera tdko them in. that, foul, sour-smelling concen. • tratioh-camp'among tho 'graves.and .tho . leypressps'.outsido.tho wallsrof; StainboulP - Or have they- passed over, like thousands ; .more, , into Asia - Minor, to livo on tho • 'charity, of almost :as'poor as them- • -selves among the snow?'... ' ''-Mihmed • irill never' know.' 1 His wife nnd children are lost in tho wilderness, Slid he, a helpless cripple, is turned out into tho jostling alleys of Stamboul ta find a living as best he may.