STILL UNBURIED

FRENCH BEAD AT VERDUN

NEW OSSUARY NOT'YET READY

("Ti»ics" Cable.) LONDON, 21st February.' " "Tho Times" Paris correspondent states that tho terrific slaughter at Verdun,' estimated at 400,000, is recalled by 'the revelation that the bodies of 12,500 French soldiers are still lying unburied in an enormous shed at Douaumont, packed in sevens in rough wooden boxes, not even nailed down and sometimes without lids.

A total of 9800 has lain unburied for six years. M. Dcribes, Minister of Pensions, who is in charge of the war graves, has investigated tho> matter, and explains that tho new ossuary is not yet ready, and tho bodice must be "provisionally accommodated." ~

1 Ho deplores the fast that they are so long unburied, and says that the problem is complicated by constant additions clue to the accidental discovery of bodies at the rate oif iiOO a .mouth. < '-

He adds that tlioro.is no question of searching the Verthiu battle area for tho dead, as the remainder, estimated in tens, or oven hundreds, of thousands muat bo left in the soil. The digging up of such a vast expanse-is impossiblo. It is recalled that the ossuary ■ at Douaumont was opened in 1927, and has long been crammed, to capacity ■with 8000 bodies.