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Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 100, 22 January 1919, Page 3

How the diocpse of Bruges has fared under German methods of warfare and occupation is set forth iu a letter to the Bishop of Salford, dntell November 8, from the Bishop of Bruges, Mgr. Waffelaert, who writes:—."After four years of captivity and hard oppression everybody is hastening to give signs of life. My diocese is the most sorely tried, two-thirds of it being destroyed. I have made a tour' in i'landers—a real Via Cruris. One must see tho disaster to realise it. Of many important and once flourishing villages, I have not found a single trac6. I am not exaggerating: it is literally true. How to repair tho destruction ? I know not. A committee has been formed hero to implore the help of our Allies, and I have felb it my dnty_ to accept tho chairmanship; for, outside the official indemnity which wo may hope for, there- are many Catholic works which will probably escape attention. I take the liberty of nsking your lordshin, when this committee addresses itself to you, to give it a favourable hearinjr. • But at last \vn are able to breathe! My diocese is now almost liberated, except in the south, where the barbarians under their Attila IT, even worse than i',.' Huns, continue their devastations, blewinp up churches on their passagp. and. what is monstrous, after their departure thrnving asphyxiatir/g bombs upon tho inoffensive inhabitants of the towns and villages which they have abandoned. I have visited hospitals arid seen those poor gassed and mutilated victims."