HOUSES INSIDE OUT.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume 7, Issue 241, 1 July 1915, Page 3

HOUSES INSIDE OUT.

WOED-PICTDIIB GY A BOMBARDED VILLAGES.

The following vivid description of a French village after a series of Gorman bombardments comes from the pen of a distinguished dramatic writer at present serving at the front:— “The village is a row of ruins Hanking deserted lanes and roads. I could not always distinguish roads from kitchens, cstamincts from farmyards, interiors from exteriors.

‘‘Grass was growing in the streets and in the paved floors of the houses. Where walls had been thrown down, their materails have been used to build other walls, —barricades across roads, rooms, yards, and gardens, in one case across the railway which turned up most surprisingly in what I thought was a large farm kitchen, the lines appearing under one new-battered-to-old-scomir.g way, and disappearing under the other. ‘‘Trenches and barbed-wire entanglements traverse street and roofless rooms and yards, joining cellar with cellar until the whole vilage beyond tire church is both maze and ruin. "The church is the most amazing sight of all. Nothing remains of it but the high east end wall, the rest being sheared off at the window sills. This one huge pyramidal wall still stands clear white supporting a super-life-size crucifix. "The village Is absolutely deserted. The firing line runs a. few yards outside, and stray bullets tick little bits off the remaining walls all day, while occasionally the Germans drop a few shells on what they imagine is an observation place. "My opinion is that further bombardment can only simplify the tangle. The present village with its imitations of houses turned inside out, and with railways and flower beds on the wrong sides of the front doors is the last word in bewilderment.