BURIED TREASURE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 1, 26 September 1917, Page 4

BURIED TREASURE

IN THE WAll ZONE. Following is a .most interesting tstra&t from a. letter, written by a Wellington, soldier oil duty in Inlanders to iiis parents:— ' "There was rather an interesting incident hero the other day. 1 have mentioned to you before tunt we were located close to a ruined sugar iactory. Well an old Frouchman, aged about ' ninety, came here the other day with his sou, a captain in the French Army, to dig up some papers, etc., he had buried in 1914. He came to us for a digging party, so we got haif a dozen, and the old Frenchman took us'down a big cellar and showed us tlie spot. AVe dug up a big iron pipe about Ift. by lft., with dead ends bolted on to it. On opening this, he took out three bags of papers and a small bag of gold. The papers were the title-deeds, etc.; of this ■■ factory and other factories (the old iinn ■was the owner), and were vortn about 3,000,000 francs. The poor old man. was trembling like a leaf while the boys were digging. He said he would have shot himself if the documents had gone. He had been a prisouer in Germany for the last two years. He gavo 50 francs to be divided among the boys, and away as happy as Larry. The French seem to have all buried their household goods like, that. The poor old fellow sat down 'and cried -when ho saw (he ruins of his. factory, which had cost 2,000,000 francs to build." The soldier goes on to say: "It is 3 a.m. now. and everything is deadly quiet. T am in the cellar of our hemlquivrters. It is rather weird. I nm 'on my lonesome' and go off duly in half an hour, for I do not think' thore will be anything more doing till the morning. There was a bit of a 'strafe' about 1 a.m., but that has stopped now. One of our' gnus goes off every, now nT\d again; you hear the ■whistle of the shell for a. few seconds, then it gradually dies away into silence; and about 15 seconds later you hear a faint report as it bursts over in the Bosche territory somewhere. Thera i'r his head out every now and again, and long falls to the floor from the roof vith here, also few spiders. . T have, to flick l hem off the pppor pretty often. We Imtl a mnle in here a fpw weck» aco that used (o cake here, mother, which will go tres bon."