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Show CRPTUBE IF LENS PROVIDES COAL Past Two Winters as Nightmares Night-mares for Thousands of Parisians. (New Yoik.Times-Chicaso Tribune Cable, Copyright.) PARIS. Oct. 7. The recapture of Lefis and its many coal mines have given the highest hopes here that we may be much better off for coal this winter than last. The past two winters will remain as a nightmare for many years to come in the recollection of thousands of Parisians. Coal at more than one period during those two winters was absolutely unprocurable at any price. In the second half of each winter there was a period of five to seven weeks of intense cold, and Paris was in j such straits that hundreds of even wealthy people were compelled to "remain in bed all day. the only place where anything any-thing like warmth could be obtained. From this point of view the capture of no place has been more eagerly looked forward to than that of l.ens. Practically the whole French coal sup- ply other than that received (mm the! RrW bnsin. wliirh is still tightly shut behind the German lines facing the American Amer-ican front in Txirraine. comes from Lens and the adjacent Bothune. district. The Bethune coal field, although it was many months under fire of the German guns, has never been sufficiently damaged to. prevent continuous working, but the out- ! put has not been sufficient to meet much ! more than the pressing immediate nces- , sities of French munition works. Proof of this is found In the fact that thousands of families even in the Paris area have had to be content with power to buy only a single hundred weight of coal per week, and have never been able to rely on even that nint h being obtainable. It may be imagined, therefore, with what a feeling of relief Paris heard this morning not only that Tens was recaptured, but that measures were long ago taken with a view to rendering the operation of the mines possible once more with the very shortest delay. M. Bash-, who is both deputy and mayor of Lens, assured your correspondent that the engineers of the famous Courrieres mines began between two nnd three years a no preparatory work with the view of ensuring the rapid re-establishment of the principal pits in the Lens field as soon as the Germans could he driven out. no ma tter what damage the enemy had done them, Simul taneously with the work of destruction de-struction carried on by the boche. the French have been constructing and reconstructing. recon-structing. Kxactly what this meant. M". Basiy declined to say. but experts here support the idea that throughout the long German occupation of Lens the engineers in charge of the adjoining Bethune field have boon ceasplessiy busy driving through underground connections with tho Lens coal hods. The champion boxer. Georges Carrjen-tier, Carrjen-tier, in bis younger days was a miner at Lens. Most of the money lie made as a boxer is invested in mining shares in- the native coat fields. |
