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Show HOTELS OPENED TO REFUGEES TAORMINA, Sicily, January 31. (Correspondence of tho Associated Press.) Fourteen hundred refugees from the country north of tho Piavo havo found shelter in this old Sicilian mountain town, described by some Americans as tho most beautiful placo In the world. Tho hotels which cared for tourists before tho war have been thrown open to tho refugees. They have rooms generally by families, and club together for their meals in much the same way that Italian immigrants make shift on tho emigrant steamers. English and American residents joined with the townspeople in providing provid-ing clothing. Tho two problems are food and employment, and representatives represen-tatives of the American Red Cross who visited here loft a fund with the local war committee to purchase wool and pay the refugee women for knitting warm socks and gloves for Italian soldiers. sol-diers. Fivo hundred refugees arrived at midnight at tho Giardini station, two and a half miles below on tho coast lino railroad, in tho midst of a torrential torren-tial downpour. Tho feeblest and oldest old-est wero brought up in carriages, hundreds hun-dreds climbed the steep footpath in utter darkness and in fear of the eerie height to which they were taken. A very few had bundles of simple cloth- 5j flit ing, tho majority only the clothes they i W wore standing in. Some had cscapHf in tho night barely clothed. j Many had walked continuously fa Suai fivo days and nights before reachcj 7 tho train which took eight Tvcarydin wCTt and nights to bring them here. UtJ, W so packed that many stood up then- ,1 tire distance. Two little children ifflV cumbed to the hardships on the Jew tici nuy. Many of tho families haveiauv fili ing members. Before reaching tbj ) tt-filt trains they endured almost cliui- i bursts of rain, the difficult crc-aq fr of swollen streams and sodden p'uiu, i with ever tho horror of the purs:i: ' Ausurinns. During this time famdiM became separated, children lo't ti i yix parents and tho few little tra.-crfi :! rcut from their homes were gradually dre jm i ped aside to make easier their hunki I 'null journeying. j jj |