In the West.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 84, 13 April 1915, Page 5

In the West.

A PEN PICTURE. WHAT THE WAR MEANS TO BELGIUM. Times and Sydney Sun Service. (Received 8 a.m.) London, April 11. An American who accompanied ;i siiipioad of American flour to Belgium says: "Imagine a densely-populated manufacturing area occupied by a hostile army; suppose there is a picket of these foreign soldiers at every street corner and at every cross-road; conceive the coast absolutely blockaded by half the navies of the world, the land borders lined with five million men, the railways, telegraphs, telephones, and posts stopped, the people Forbidden to make any movement o tside the villages, the factories close c 5, and ninety per cent, of unemployed; conceive, further, rich and poor reduced to the systematic rating of half the normal consumption of bread, and you get, perhaps, a glimmering of what the war means in Belgium."

BISHOP UNDER FIRE. CONFIRMATION SERVICES AND COMMUNION FOR THE SOLDIERS. (Received 9.50 a.m.) London, April 12. The Bishop of London paid a fortnight's visit to the British army. He was frequently under fire. He held confirmation services, and on one occasion the men came from the trenches. The Bishop consecrated the burial places of the British dead. Ho celebrated Communion on Easter Morning, the barn roof and the walls being shattered by gunfire. MISCELLANEOUS. Paris, April 12. Official: After an all-night struggle we captured three hundred metres of

trendies in the Argonne. We captured new linos of trenches at Bois l.vBasle, April 12. Eighteen inches of snow have fallen in the Y'osgcs. Had weather is interfering with operations in Woevre and Mouse. The Germans for several days have boon furiously attacking positions we captured at Hartmanns Weilerkopf. The French guns had practically destroyed the cover of the district, and the ("Sermans were forced to attack almost in flic open, sustaining many casualties.