Mt. Pleasant Pyramid | 1918-08-16 | Page 7 | Refugees in Rich Attire

REFUGEES IN RICH ATTIRE English Writer Describes Grotesque Figures He Saw During the Italian Retreat. Amid all the chaos of the Italian retreat re-treat one kept on meeting utterly Incongruous In-congruous figures, for alongside of others road-worn, shabby and dirty, to be clean and well dressed is to be grotesque. Amid this multitude of haggard, unwashed, un-washed, unshaven, dead beat males, I noticed two Italian ladles treading delicately over the rough ballast of the railway track. They had naturally brought with them In that flight the most valuable of their possessions, which were of a kind conveniently carried car-ried on their persons. Against this gray background, of mud and rubbish and a disbanded army their two figures fig-ures glittered with a brilliance that would have been conspicuous in the Rue de la Palx. Heavy sable furs and muffs almost bowed their shoulders ; each finger had two or three rings that flashed In the light ; round their necks were gold chnlns hung with pendants, nnd yet instead of the air of self-satisfied ostentation os-tentation that might well have gone with a display so lavish, they were only two pathetically little, frightened, perplexed per-plexed faces, and an uncertain gait that did not promise much further progress along that ankle-wrenching railway line. G. Ward Price in the Century Magazine.