THE NEW YPRES.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 25 August 1922, Page 1

THE NEW YPRES.

\Ve caught a. glimpse of an old ruin jii the distance as our train crept slow- . iy towards Ypres. The rugged out- , line stood out boldly in the spring sunshine, but what "a different setting from the one we remembered'so well. ° As the train drew alongside the lowplatform we were surprised at the ousmesslike activity of the crowded little station, with its groups of peasant women with market produce- ! workmen sorting out building mate- '. rials from the dumps in the station yard, and a few others—like our- . selves—on a hurried visit to a land of . memories. > ' We passed out into the busy little ! station- square where motor-cars were - drawn up, and a steam tram, with ] many cars attached, stood ready for , passengers. Directly opposite the sta- ( tion we discovered the place we were looking for, a new building with "'Hotel Continental" in bold letters liigh over the door. And this was the little town which only a year or two ago was, perhaps, the most unpopular aud certainly one of the most unhealthy places in the whole qf. France and Belgium. In the place that was once a shell-swept quagmire, with yawning crate.rs and lieaped-up masses of iron, bricks and masonry; the place where scarcely one wrecked building boasted more than a few feet of wall standing above ground level, we found a new town growing up. The old Cloth Hall—that historic pile, still in its ruined grandeur—dominates the scene, and stands out in bold contrast to . the newly-built houses, with their red" tiled roofs gleaming in the sunshine. Everywhere one encounters feverish activity- everyone seems to be taking a hand in the remaking of this famous old town. Streets are be-ug relaid with the familiar rough pave, atrractivelookiug shops are full of new merchandise, and the souvenir shop near the Grande Place offers picture postcards and mementoes to the visitor. There is the Grand Mazasin, where one can get a smart suit of clothes niade to measure, a stylish hat, ladies' millinery, or household goods for the new homes of the 12.000 inhabitants of the township which has appeared, phonbclike. out of the ashes of its former self. We took several "snaps" of this new Ypres and returned to our hotel for dejeuner, where w r e were waited upon by a trim little mademoiselle, who favored yellow-brow T n stockings with decidedly smart high-heeled black boots. Out. through the Menin Gate, past the old prison and along the Menin Road, in bygone days as "Hell-fire Corner." A quiet enough spot these days, though in the past it well deserved its name. Then it was hardly a suitable spot for one to sit and smoke and ruminate on the hardships of war. ..... How the ration limbers, the carrying parties and this mule trains, laden with ammunition loathed this ill-fated place! On both sides of the road we sawdesolate stretches of land strewn with the debris of war—stacks of old shells xmexploded, Mills bombs, rifle grenades, tangled masses of rusty barbed ' wire piled into heaps, stacks of timber, and here and there old duckboards, an old- badly-battered tank, to-day but a gaunt iron skeleton, halfburied in the ground, a steel helmet, broken rifles, and on the rise near Hooge a well-kept cemetery, with its rows and rows of graves. All around slow-moving laborers in corduroy waistcoats and coarse blue trousers toil ceaselessly behind the ,plongh, helped by their wonderful Womenfolk in their task of reclaiming the land. Dotted here and there are concrete pillboxes, old Nissen huts, and new, red-roofed cottages. Near Hooge we came across the two woods well-known to ever?' man who served in the salient; —Chateau, and Sanctuary-decayed spectres these days, with their broken, dead tree stumps and rank undergrowth; unhealthy places once, which one scuttled through witli bated breath and ofttimes wondered how anyone ever got through at all. . Ypres to many of us is still a place of glorious sacrifice, of noble deeds, of perilous adventure —and to those of us who have been permitted to see it under different conditions, what

a place of hallowed memories. New bricks and mortar may build a new town, but they cannot build a new Ypres within our hearts.