REIGN OF TERROR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2407, 12 March 1915, Page 5

REIGN OF TERROR

A Belgian lady, in a letter from 'Ant* werp, received by her uncle, M. Van der Voost, now staying in Bedford Park, London, speaks of the almost insuperable difficulties experienced in both getting communications out of and into the Belgian capital. She says: "We are living here under, a. veritable reign of terror. We can hardly walk the length of a street without a passport, and in order to get one at all one has to pretty well move heaven and earth. Some people try and get over the frontier into Holland and are promptly arrested, while those who attempt by a circuitous route to dodge the authorities are shot. Food is soaring. Nobody .dreams of paying rent; and if the poor get any wages tliey are lucky. "It is a hand-to-mouth existence. Mv tenants owo me 'three months, and I haven't tho heart to insist. Moreover, they aro stony-broke themselves. When is it all going to end? The Germans pretend that there is an air of gaiety, in the city, and that the inhabitants rejoice over the Teuton occupation.! "They give concerts at noon in front of the railway station. George stopped and listened to-day. TJiero was quite.a crowd. In the middle of cla6sic pieces the band burst in with'the German National Anthem. There was a yell of derision and shouts of 'Stop it!' and the hissing was so general that German troops came up and patrolled about till' the noise died down. Antwerp may ba calm, but it won't take mucn to have the whole city, or what remains of the communtiy, in revolt, and you can imagine what will happen when wc hear the welcome sound of the guns of the Allies."