PARIS IN WAR TIME.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIII, Issue 49, 27 October 1915, Page 3

PARIS IN WAR TIME.

THE DIGNITY OF SORROW. Miss Carrie Swain, whose name is well-known in theatrical circles, writes as follows to Mr Walter Bentley, Sydney, from Paris: “The truth is, we are satisfied not to he starving and out in the street, for all business of every kind is, and since the war has been, dead. ?fot only this, but the little income one had has gradually been shrinking and growing smaller and smaller as one after another various investments have stopped paying. And yet we are smiling and going about our various daily tasks just as though nothing abnormal was taking place. “When it comes to writing about the war, I hardly know where to commence. It is a second nature to us over here by this time, and the ordinary chronicle of lighting—the advancing and retiring of one side or the other—has become such as a .seesaw that it is monotonous, and unless some extraordinary calamity shocks the people, we have got as not oven to talk about the war. Paris as well as all France is, however, no longer a bright and happy land. You rarely see people laughing. There are only the'English soldiers who seem merry and gay. The whole French population appears to have suddenly’ become serious and as though weighted down with the horrors of war. Even in appearance, and as by common consent, the whole population appears to have laid aside all light and gay colors, even the men discarding straw hats and retaining the sombre black. On Wednesday, the 14th, the National Fete Day, there was something sublime in the quiet dignity with which the French passed their annual holiday. There was no music; there was no sfngfng; there was no dancing; there was no shouting; and there was no noise. There was only the occasional displaying of flags and the quiet, unobtrusive crowds of people with their families and children in the streets.

“But during the last ten days a new feautre has come upon the city, and that is the thousands of soldiers from the firing line, who after nine months’ fighting have been given four days’ leave to return to their wives or families. Hundreds of these brown and war-beaten men, with torn and faded coats, are met with on every hand. But they are a brave, finelooking, splendid lot of men, hardened Ijy exposure and the terrible experiences through which they have gone, and there "is something in the strong, subdued lines of their faces and fixed lips that tells you they are determined to win. They seem to have grown old, and never laugh or even smile. As for the wounded and the maimed, Paris might be now called Cripple Alley, for thousands of poor iellows are limping and crawling about, or without sight are being led by the kindly hands of their comrades. Today I saw five soldiers together, with only five legs, and some of the wounds are so atrocious 1 as’ to be beyond description. It is very sad to see -• so many young fellows hardly 20 years of age without arms or legs, lor what indeed is life now for theip in the future! I keep 011 doing what I can for all these brave fellows, and I ani constantly at the hospital or working in some way to do what little good I can, for no one can remain idle at such a time and amidst so much suffering.

“I have had any number of the poor woundedisoldiers here to tea —crowds of them at times—and some of them had to lie carried here on the shoulders of their comrades. And my heart gave way when they tried to thank me and show some appreciation ; their eyes, too, filled with tears, for we knew that our hearts were one in this great effort to withstand the destruction of every principle of civilisation and justice. It is the cause of the. just against the, unjust—of right against wrong—and in the end we are sure to win. Then T have been giving any number of comforts for the soldiers, and you know what a pleasure this lias been to me who doves my music so much, and it has been the means besides of shedding some little cheerfulness into the saddened lives of these crippled and maimed hoys who have given so much for their country; and many of who have so little left to look forward to without feet or arms, or even sight. And do you realise that the firing line is only about an hour’s ride away in an auto., and that the war is, after all, only just beyond our door?” Surely the above true recital of events taking place in Europe at present should he enough to urge every able-bodied young man to volunteer for the front.