DESERTED BELGIAN HOTELS

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 75, 25 September 1914, Page 2

DESERTED BELGIAN HOTELS

/ FLIGHT OF VISITORS. " Ifc ha f be «n a very bad day indeed tor hotel-keepers, pension merchants, ??-i . trade g ener! %." wrote a Daily Chronicle correspondent in Belgium on 2nd August. "As you know, this is a* great place for Germans at holiday-time, and practically all have fled since seven o'clock int mornin S' For instance, there were 105 people in our hotel yesterday evening. At breakfast-time this morning there were fewer than 50 ! ' The majori* ty (Germans) had all departed by 7 a.m. Four of the fairly big hotels in Knocke have closed their doors to-day, all their visitors (Germans) having gone home, and most of their servants (waiters, porters, etc.) having been called upon to protect their frontiers. " At one of the hotels there were 123 Germans, five Americans, and one or two English people. Early this morning the proprietor found himself with the Americans and the English only, and he has sent them oh to our hotel and shut up his own. "At 6 a.m. we were awakened by the ringing of a huge bell and the shouting of excited voices, and on looking out of tho window found tli6 street below crowded with odd-looking soldiers, young men who had evidently been called upon to serve, and weeping women. A gendarme was reading a 'proclamation,' in which it was given out that the men had to make for their barracks at once, while another was distributing coupons which entitled them to travel free to their various destinations in the public vehicles. " Another contrast between yesterday and to-day — this with reference to the 1 plage ' (beach) generally. Yesterday (Friday) the sea front and sands were almost uncomfortably crowded, and every one of the 500 or more bathing machines was in use. To-day — a Saturday — there are 30 machines out; the sands are practically deserted; there is no band on the front, and the whito tops of the little tables outside the cafes have nothing on them, as the chairs have nothing in them ! In Blankenberghe, Zee-Brugge, Den Haan, Wenduyne, Heyst, and Duinbergen it is tho same — in fact, all along the coast."