| Show HOLLAND NOW MOTHERS ABOUT BELGIANS in holland there are now tour four large camps tor for belgian refugees only containing about seventy thousand persons as against seven hundred thou band sand last year and all over the country are private houses rented by the government and some by private subscriptions where people 0 of the better class who are however as penniless as the others are being cared for says a new york herald correspondent the dutch government pays all their expenses it coats costs 14 cents a day to feed the growns ups ia in the camps and the children 8 cents a day in the private houses they cost 28 cents and 20 cents respectively their clothing and school ing la is an extra expense and has so tar far cost ap proximately 55 the building of 0 the various camps totaled and a special fund for the eventual restoring of homes now equals I 1 visited one of these ca camps amps at gouda and was most enthusiastically greeted america Is a 9 pass word that assures one a welcome wherever bel glans are there are sixteen hundred persons there now Y young oung and old men and women and many many children over them all a spirit of calm seems to have fallen they have found a temporary home an interval of quiet between last year years s sudden horrors and the years of toll that lie ahead of them when they shall have re turned to their ruined barren lands again there are faces sad with the sorrow of loved ones lost in the war anxious ones who have not heard tor for months from husbands and lovers and who know not whether hether vv they still live some who are ruined and who know that when the war Is over they must start afresh their hard struggle tor for existence and there are some the older ones who have that saddest most M ost hopeless look of all who know that tor for them life holds na naught aught but sorrow and poverty there was one woman seventysix seventy six years old whom I 1 noticed especially she waa was sitting to in one ot of the workrooms where there were about three hundred women some were making lace some making clothes on sewing machines given by the rockefeller fund other were knitting and as I 1 came into the room I 1 heard the strains ot of the Braban conne the belgian national anthem they were singing it while they worked young and old and as their voices rose in unison and the beautiful words belgium ever must be tree free rang out clear in this little world ot of outcasts among these women who have many of them lost all save their patriotism I 1 caught sight ot of the old woman she was making lace and her toll worn hands her deep lined face and the un sadness of 0 her eyes made a picture un forgettable and impressive the children look happy and healthy in the nursery where the wee ones are in the kinder garten and in the schoolrooms where sweet faced nuna nuns whose convents have been burnt be fore their very ees ces have taken up their work here and in this strange new environment are teaching the exiled boys and girls to take up the tasks which will soon tall fall upon their young shoulders all the work ol 01 the camp Is done liy by the re cretu fu gees themselves and there are various work shops and clas classrooms brooms besides one very interesting feature Is the work done under the guld ance of the english society of friends they have furnished all the material and are now teaching the men in the camps to construct portable houses at gouda there are 60 ot of these now finished and they are delightful little homes consisting mostly of 0 two rooms a living room and a big bedroom divided into two or more corn com apartments part ments the houses are P painted aisted white out side with green roots roofs and inside they are paint ed light gray all the furniture has also been made in the camp shops and as each man ilia ashes one en entire tire house he Is allowed to live tu in it with his family 4 |
