BABES OF BELGIUM.

Northern Advocate, 19 April 1915, Page 7

BABES OF BELGIUM.

WILL IRWIN'S STORY.

MOTHERS' PLIGHT

There have been 40,000 births in Belgium since the Germans came there; and there will likely be 40,----000 more in this winter of hardship and privation. "How many of the newly-arrived 40,000 have already died, unnecessarily — undecorated, unsung victims of this war —no "one will ever know," says Mr. Will Irwin, who is one of the American journalists who hav e seen Belgium since it became a conquered country. "How many of the coming 40,000 will die this winter," he continues jn the Springfield "Republican," "depends on us in America—upon how much food we send to the nursing mothers, how much milk to the babes." Mr. Irwin goes on to recall a scene he witnessed at the tail of the procession of Belgian refugees who poured into France. A group had halted at a crossroads beside which someone had erected a tent of blankets strung on sticks: — "As I approached, wondering what this might be, an automobile came whizzing down the road at 70 miles an hour—there are no speed laws for military automobiles in time of war. It stopped beside the tent; there was a parley, and a man in Belgian uniform wearing a Red Cross brassard on his arm alighted. '."What Ie it —what is happening?' I asked the first of the refugees beside the tent —an old man who crouched in the gutter. " 'Un enfant—a' baby *is being born,' he said briefly. The man in uniform was a Belgian surgeon taking time from his work of repairing death to assist in giving life. "Again: It was the next day in Calais —Calais, once so busy and so venerable, and in spots so pretty, but now faded and dirty with the passage of armies. Ten thousand of j these refugees came into Calais that day. That day, also, the Red Cross was bringing in Belgian wounded by the thousand—there had been serious fighting along the Yser. "The refugees, herded or escorted by the police, streamed down the streets to the concentration yards prepared for them on the~ docks of the French Government, which was going to transport them to the Midi as soon as it could get the steamers. You would hear now and then the toot of an automobile horn, and the refugees would make way for the passage of a motor car loaded to capacity with the white-faced wounded. The car woufd go on, and the refugees would close their gates and resume their weary, . nerveless pace. ' .... "At the concentration yards they sat in family groups, the children huddled about their mothers and grandmothers like chickens around hens. No child among them laughed or played; they were too weary for that; but no child cried. I was trying to have speech with these refugees, and finding them too nerveless to give any account of their adventures, when an ambulance arrived. "A nurse and a physician descended. A woman rose from a distant group and joined them. t She carried in her ; arms a bundle wrapped in rags. The slant of her back showed that the bundle contained a child — there is an attitude of motherhood which none can mistake. The women in the nearest group followed the pantomime with their tearless, hopeless eyes. " 'What is it * I asked. "For a time none of the women answered. Then one spoke in a dead tone. "'Her baby; is dead,' she said. 'She had no milk in her.' "All that happened on the fringe of Belgium, to the refugees who had made their way out and were nearing safety and enough comfort to keep soul and body together. I could multiply instances from the observation of others. There was, for example, the group of 200 refugees who arrived in Holland early in November. They carried with them four dead, new-born babies. It was the same story, which one hears everywhere. The mothers were so reduced by privation that they had no milk of their own. As for cows' milk, it was not to be bad for any money. "Add another picture, brought out by an American from Belgium. H e stood one morning by the back door of a German cook camp, watching a group of Belgian women, grubbing through the trash-heap piled up behind the camp. All these women carried babies. " 'What are they doing?' he. asked a German sergeant with whom he had struck up acquaintance. " 'Scraping our condensed milk ; cans,' said the sergeant It's the only way to get milk for their ba- ! bies. I've seen, them run their fingers round a can which looked as bright as a new coin, and hold them j into the.babies' mouths to suck. My company, , he added, 'has been getting along without milk in its coffee and giving it to thes e women. We've received no orders to the contrary— and we're mostly family men. But we're an exception; and it doesn't go very far.'

"Here is another recent picture from stricken Brussels, that gay, dainty, lively city in old times—the city whoee emiling people called it petit Paris. The scene is the once busy, pleasant boulevard Bishofsheim. Awoman collapses on a bench set along the sidewalk after the 1 fashion of the greater Paris. In her arms is a baby. A child staggers along clinging to her apron. The woman's face is blue and yellow; she is on the verge of collapse. The baby, surely not over five months old, has a pale, lead-coloured skin. Its mouth is open as though set that way. Its eyes ar c closed. "Two women of Brussels pass this unhappy group. They hurriedly exchange some words, turn back to the woman on the bench. Then one stands guard while the other hastens for some milk and bread—-such as is to be found in the Brussels of to-day. They force a little milk be- j tween the teeth of the mother. They ! let the baby drink. Unweaned though it is, it drinks as though it had never drunk otherwise. "To the face of the-mother come a few patches of colour. She slowly recovers until she is able to eat a bit of bread. The baby opens its mouth, drinks more greedily. 'It has not fed since two days,' the mother whispers. The mother tries to rise from the bench, but she cannot. The elder child drinks the milk'that is left. It looks curiously at the , piece of bread as if it did not know what it was. The mother forces it to eat. A crowd has gathered-mur-muring. This sight is not new, yet each time it draws a little crowd. Everyone would like to give—but no one can. Who is not poor at this moment? Many of them have children at home who to-day weigh less than the day they were- born." J' I The lists of the' dead issued by France and England and Germany are mounting day by day to a ghastly total. "But these take . account only of the strong young men who have died in the fighting." There might be made lists of the uncounted dead. "They do not list the women who, foolishly or • ignorantly, sticking to their homes, have died under the shellfiTe of enemies or,friends. They do not list the weak and helples? who have dropped out from the pathetic caravans of refugees to perish along the edges of the roads. They do not take lists of. those who are beginning to die by hunger in stricken Belgium. And, finally, they do not list these babes of Belgium, dropping off before their lives have fairly begun, because there ■■'■■& no milk. "Let us , view the situation in cold blood. Belgium is shut off from thje world—ringed with steel. Her own food supply was* used up ■ Ipng- ago, either by the people or by their conquerors. The cattle were first of-all to go; even in August I saw;the Germans killing milch cows for rations. A cow or a small dairy : herd is left here or there, but they are the exceptions. •' "The supply of condensed milk ran short long ago. Now, milk, is a necessity t6 most civilised children between the ages" of one and two years. Some children; it is true, pull through, under exceptional circumstances of privation, without it; but these are the unusually sturdy; they stand apart from the rule. The average young child'must have mother's milk or a substitute; There is, of course,, no substitute to be'had in Belgium, and • equally there 'is little mother's milk. Every woman knows, that a civilised nursing mother must 'keep up her strength.' She must have nourishing food —in many cases special food. Every woman knows that a certain proportion of civilised mothers cannot feed their own babies even at that. "Nourishing food—special : food! The news which filters out of that locked, stricken country to the American Commission for Relief in Belgium makes a sarcasm and ■ a mockery of those phrases. In many, !if not in most Belgian cities, the populace is down to one large baker's bun a day, issued by the municipal authorities. In some places, the authorities have been able to supplement that ration by one bowl of cab-bage-soup a day—for a nursing mother!