THE RUSSIAN WOUNDED.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 177, 5 January 1915, Page 6

THE RUSSIAN WOUNDED.

SCENES IN MOSCOW. SPLENDID ARRANT!EMEX'n. There is. no r.".c'i simple and cheerful and open-hearted and gossipy city in all Europe as Moscow. It has the qualities that enable it to yield unreservedly to a great impulse whenever the moment calls. Russian downriglitness is at its strongest here. Moscow is the heart of Russia. 'And the heart of the city lias gone out wholly to the army. The battles are fought far away on the frontier, but every day trains loaded with wounded come rolling in from the frontier, and Moscow receives them as a mother receives lier children.

I drove through dozens of streets, says a correspondent of the London Daily Chronicle, and almost in every streei T saw the sign of the Red Cross with the inscription, "Home for Sick and Wounded AYarriors." I went to the City Relief Office, and with difficulty pushed my way through the hurrying crowds of volunteers. I found M. Chelnokoff. one of the Deputies for Moscow and president of the newly-formed league of Russian Towns for Aid to the Wounded, glowing with enthusiasm for the valour of the Russian soldier and the generosity of the towns and zemstvos, or provincial councils, which have already provided 100,000 beds behind the fighting line. A member of the Moscow Municipal Executive told me that under the management of the Moscow City Council, there were 31,000 beds for the wounded, of which for the moment 18.500 were occupied. About 7000 convalescent men were lodged in the homes of Moscow citizens. The War Office provided in the city accommodation for 12,000, and on the contributions of private individuals 10,000 beds were maintained. Half the elementary schools were used as hospitals, and in the remaining half the children were taught in two shifts. Moscow is the chief distributing centre for the wounded. The less serious cases are dealt witli at a hospital rear the station, and at the first opportunity are sent on further into the interior. The severely wounded are left in Mo??ow.

AH these figures were interesting c-nongh, but I was anxious to see the work done, and M. ChelnokofT kindly i.ut me in t'-e charge of a municipal sur'..eoii, Dr. Nikolsky. who took me on a round of vi-its to various types of hospital. Tile first we came to was a small home maintained by the parents of the pupils of a well-known private school. A quaint old Moscow house, with endless nooks and channies and pantries and abrupt staircases —the kind of house described, in Tolstoy's novels —had been turned into a clean, bright hospital, in which about 30 soldiers were living like princes under the charge of a woman doctor and a large staff of nurses. This hospital has been equipped in a week, and there was no lack of anything, from sheets and blankets t7> surgical appliances and sterilising apparatus. I saw a soldier being bandaged, and it seemed almost worth while being wounded to be so well cared for. A big, light, airy school, which I next sjw, but less home-like, but entirely adequate for the care of the 150 soldiers who reposed there, some reading, some playing the balalaika. The most curious hospital I saw was a row of tramway sheds, wdiere a floor had been laid over the rails and the pits from which the. cars are cleaned and in the long halls lighted from the roof, stood line upon line of beds. Everything needful was here—fine bathrooms, perfectly equipped operating and bandaging rooms, kitchens, and store-rooms. Some of the sheds which lie close to the railway are to be used as temporary resting spots for those of the lightly wounded who are to be sent on to hospitals in the provinces. A branch line brings the trains up to the verv door. >

Then we visit >d the Soldattenkov Hospital, one " f the most up-to-date hospitals in Km*.oie, and certainly the best in Moscow. " r| >o men who lay here were severely wi jaded, but they were living in almost palatial splendour. Tliero were two Austrian prisoners among them, and one of these, a fair young Ruthenian peasant from Galicia, was thoroughly at home, for he could make himself understood, and the Russian soldiers joked with him, and were particularly tender to him.

The other was a Hungarian, a gaunt, dark-bearded mail, with aquiline nose and big, brown, restless, eves. He had been very wild, they -said, when first lie was brought in. ITe spoke only Hungarian which no one understood, and he seemed to dread treachery. But kindness had subdued him, and in those big roving eyes there was no longer any fear—only perplexity.