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Show 31-1,000 MISSING. Watching and waiting, praying and hoping, millions of men, women and children chil-dren in many countries of the world are agonizing over the fact that their loved ones are posted as missing. In France alone 31-1,000 of the blue-coated warriors war-riors who went forth to battlo are not in the army, have not returned home and nothing is known of their fate. There must be an appalling total of such cases in all the armies that took part in tiie war. Even in the United States it is probable that many fathers and mothers, wives, sweethearts, brothers and sisters will mourn for brave youths who went to tho front and disappared. They may have been blown to pieces or wounded and covered up iu the trenches by shell lire. They may have been crazed bv shell shock and wandered off to die in some secluded spot. Any number num-ber of things may have happened to l hem, and it is the very uncertainty of their fate which prolongs the agony of the folks at home. The same th.in has hapuened in all other wars, but, as this is the greatest ef all conflicts between armed forces, the number of missing exceeds all former for-mer records. The French military authorities au-thorities believe that, out of the 314,000 men posted as missing, all hope for at leai-t 120,000 of them must be abandoned. aban-doned. Search for the remainder will be made bv an army of 12,000 searchers who will explore the trenches and dugouts dug-outs along the whole battleline from Switzerland to the sea for any evidence that may lead to identification. As nearlv 17,000 square miles of ground must be covered, it will take some time to complete the work. No doubt the t::te of u any of the missing heroes will be definitely decided and the agony of dur,b-L reu:oed. But, in thousands of c:i.es. no trace will be found and the I eriod of mourning will last for the balance bal-ance of the lives of parents and wives, the hitter of whom are left in the most pitiable condition. They cannot remarry witbvut being haunted by the fear that the tib.-ent husband w iU finally turn up, which 1ms frequently happened in the case of men 'jtud among tho miss ing in former wars. If they remain single, hoping against hope for the return re-turn of tho absent one, they are compelled com-pelled to fitiht the battle of life alone without tho comfort and protection which they might otherwise have. It is true that some men have been known to change their names upon getting get-ting out of tho army, sometimes' without with-out any apparent reason, for the pur" pose of taking a new start in life in a strange locality where they can cut loose from all former ties with a minimum mini-mum risk of being recognized. The number of such cases, however, is very small when compared with the missing totals. It is too early to speculate upon tho fato of American soldiers from whom no word has been received since they sailed for France. The chances are that nearly all of them are safo and sound, and that they will return re-turn in due course of time. There is also much hope for those whoso names have appeared in tho list of missing, for the American casualty lists are known to be full of errors. There is not so much hope in tho cases of the Frenchmen who have disappeared. |