BELGIAN VISITS HIS HOME

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2380, 9 February 1915, Page 6

BELGIAN VISITS HIS HOME

. "IN A PITIFUL STATE." I "have paid a visit to Coutich (a. villaee near Antwerp) to see the house once our home, wondering whether the Germans had honoured it with a, visit. But I had no illusions, Coutich being between Waelhem and Antwerp, writes a Belgian to a brother in Manchester. As oou as I arrived I noticed everywhere the sisrus of a devastating bombardment. The church, howover, had not suffered. I saw the grave ot the Belgian <Sptain of l'ort ffaeihem. I noticed also a grave with a German inscription—enemies resting together. Concerning our home, my fears proved true. It was m a pitiful state. Ihe roof and second floor had been taken avay completely by a ahol, of which I found several pieces .The first floor was damaged, but the reft was still safe oil its foundations. But what a sio-ht in the rooms downstairs! Our un invited guests seemed to havo had a Eood time: empty bottles of win© and rhamnagne (although there was no champagne in our cellar!) on tables and on the piano, music spread all over the floor round the open instrument, as it thov had had a concert. Dirty mudlarks on carpets and sofas, the drawers of the sideboard and desk open and papers thrown about, the safe in the office broken open, the door lying on the floor, llappilv we had taken ca.ro that it was empty. This is how most refugees answering . the invitation of the authorities find their homes, for our > case is general* and iu some houses it is worse. J-ha village is deserted, almost ompty. Some poorer-class people are to be seen, talkin" and sighing, wondering what will happen to-morrow. They are ruled by tho new Burgomaster. He is a G»erman who lived long since 111 Coutich, where ho kept a little shop and tried to make customers of those now under his command. . . Thore is much misery m tnose towns and villages where things arc "settled, and where it is almost worse than at the front. To the long list of killed m this war might be added another of many innocent people, mostly women, to whom the horror of what they havo seen and gone through has caused dangerous illnesses, followed by death.