CHILDREN IN THE TRENCHES.

Gisborne Times, Volume XLV, Issue 3984, 17 July 1915, Page 8

CHILDREN IN THE TRENCHES.

CARET) FOR. BY ALLIES ON THE BATTLEFIELD.

Strange as it may seem, the villages of the Yser —Langemarck, lieumghe, Zonnebeke, and others—are still inhabited, although tlio whole countryside is swept by shell and shrapnel by Germans, British, Trench, and BeiglNot till now have the peasants who lived in that battle-torn district thought it necessary to send thenchildren away to safety. How oval, 350 Belgian boys and girls, aged from two to thirteen years, have just arrived in Paris from the villages around Dixmudc and Ypres, and are being cared for with affection by French school-masters and schoolmistresses. Many of them will be sent into the country. , . . , They will have somo wonderful at - ventures to tell their new - French friends. Their parents, loath to leavo their native fields of Flanders, novel ceased to till the land, the scene oi daily strife. . r , Tl'iev had dug trenches for themselves' info which they retired whenever the cannonade became too hot, anti they had become quite accustomed to take ‘their meals therein or to sleep in them if the shells made it dangerous to try to reach their villages at 111 the children left at home in the daytime', they used to take reruge whenever necessary in the trenches o the Trench (or British) troops, where they were always watched over wit-n paternal solicitude.- •• • ..