“TWISTED MUG" SOCIETY

Evening Star, Issue 18818, 17 December 1924, Page 10

“TWISTED MUG" SOCIETY

DISFIGURED HEROES. For a. fraternal organisation (o exist under tho incorporated name of tho “Twisted Mug Society,” composed en_Hrely of men with ugly and warped faces, might seem humorous if it were not for the fact of its war association. With a largo and vigorous personnel, which is not, fortunately, in any danger of increasing unless a,Mother war intrudes itself upon the scarred soil of Franco, I lie Twisted Mug Society is as honored an organisation as any i hat exists in France to-day. And well might it he. Every member of it lin-s an artificial nose or jaw, or is so disfigured by war wounds and operations as to make his faco a pitiful caricature of the human countenance. Colonel, I’icot, as bravo and popular soldier as ever lived, - is president. tie possesses but one eye, an aluminium chin, and n mushroom nose. His cheeks are lined with scars and his eyelids devoid of lashes; yet nobody is prouder of his appearance than Colonel Rieot—unless it is, perhaps, his children. Marshall Retain, who is honorary president of the Twisted Mugs, is the only person affiliated with the society wiio can boast of resemblance to an ordinary human being. The rest are like Colonel Rieot, and many of them much worse. One veteran has obtained tho record of having his face operated upon sixty-two times since the war; none of (hem less than five times. Five of the ugliest—and needless to. sav tho proudest—were present at Versailles when the peace treaty was signed as a special and honored guard for M, Clemencean, and as a special and honored reminder for M. Brockdorff-Rantza.u and his colleagues that there had been a. war in which Germany w - a.s defeated. That, however, was before the Twisted Mug Society came into being. Now its members are hoping to build a, special hospital and home for themselves, where the difficult treatment necessary may be, obtained, and where they always can be together, such of them as are still celibate, fn a spot of honored serenity. They are possibly the only men in tho world’who take pride in (heir ugliness—the only men to whom ugliness is a, mark of tho greater respect.