RUSSIAN CHILDREN AND THE WAR.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1602, 24 August 1916, Page 4

RUSSIAN CHILDREN AND THE WAR.

ENTHUSIASTIC PATRIOTS

One of the phenomena which shows how popular the war is in Russia is the participation of the children in the conflict, writes Stephen Graham, in his most interesting book, “Russia and the War.” There is scarcely a town school in Russia from which hoys have not run away to the war. Hundreds of girls have gone off in hoys’ clothes and tried to pass themselves off as buys, and enlist, as volunteers, and several have got through, since the medical examination is only a neglih!c formality, required iu one place, forgotten in another; the Russians are so lit as a whole. So among the wounded in the bailie of (he Niemen was a broad-shouldered girl from Zlate-Ust, only sixteen years old, and no one had dreamed ilia I she was anything else than the man for whom she was passing her-

self off. But not only hoys and girls of sixteen or seventeen, but children of eleven or twelve, have contrived to have a hand in the lighting or iu the nursing.

While L was in Vulna there was a touching ease —a little girl of twelve years, Marusia Charushina, turned up. She had mu away from her home in Viatka, some thousands of miles away, had got on the train as a “hare” (i.e., wilhoul a ticket). The conductor had smiled on her, and Jel her go on. Al Viina, in (he traffic of (he great city, she was a little bewildered, but sbe asked a passing soldier the way to the hospital. He look her to one, and she explained to him that she had come to nurse the wounded, AI the hospital a Red Cross nurse questioned her. and she gave the same answer. The nurse telegraphed to (he child’s father, and asked that he should give permission for her to remain in the hospital among the soldiers. The father gave permission, so little Marusia was allowed to remain. A uniform was made for her, and now as the smallest Sister of Alercy she tends the soldiers. Boys of ten or fourteen have fought, and one boy has fought in eleven battles, and was eventually decorated by the Tsar with the Order of St. George.

These are but the random instances of the active interest of (he school children. In the humbler and less romantic' life of those who do not run away, there is also much that is beautiful. In Moscow each school has its own special hospital. The children support it, visit it daily. Each child is responsible for the linen underclothing of each man. At the sound of the hell, which is rung intermittently in all the cities, the children stop their daily tasks, pause a moment, remember the hattlelields and the great struggle, and cross themselves. In this way school life is touched in England as well as in Rnssia. In many country places the village hell rings to remind people to pray for the soldiers. And in London, even in the poorest schools, there is (rue national feeling and an individual tenderness.