REFUGEE CHILDREN.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume IV, Issue 964, 14 March 1917, Page 6

REFUGEE CHILDREN.

YOUTHFUL IMMIGRANTS. WAR'S UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES. Belgian refugee children, 214 of them, have come safely to New York. This is the largest number to arrive here at any one time since the European war began. They came (says a writer in a recent exchange) on the Nieu Amsterdam and when they embarked at Rotterdam they romped and sang Belgian songs at top voice. In shipping circles, these children arrived in New York about six o'clock Tuesday night. In reality, most of them have been ferrying back and forth between quarantine, Ellis Island, the Holland-America pier at Hoboken, and the Battery, for a day and a half, satisfying immigration red tape. By this time, they have been sorted into firsts, seconds, and thirds at Ellis Island, according to measles, sore eyes, or merely because of the lack of fathers and mothers. Those who were scot-free from disease have gone on to homes that have been found for them throughout the United States and Canada. They went gladly, singing, smiling. America is the one place in the world to them—"America, where there are no soldiers," as one Belgian son of nine years said. Father de Ville, of the Belgian Church of Chicago, gathered them in over there in the country districts in Belgium. They were a lusty, redcheeked lot of youngsters, fed to the throat on plenteous milk and potatoes. Now they have trickling tears of regular New York colds-in-the-head and croupy coughs that have been caused by sleeping in different beds and exposure to winds that whirl fog around the Lower Bay. Coming to America. The story that fits nearly all their cases is this: Parents, or perhaps one parent, were there before the war came. They had arranged for the child to be cared for in Belgium until a real home could be made and enough money saved to insure smooth-sailing here. Before this could be accomplished the war broke out. Communication was impossible. Few knew where their children were. Belgian parents all over the country asked the Rev J. F. Stille;mans, director of the Belgian Bureau, 431 "West 47th Street, to help find the children. Every little son and daughter of "Beige" had his passage money forwarded by the American relatives and five dollars for a pocket piece in case of emergency. Many of the children were alone, the square white tags with their names their one claim to protection. They ranged in age from babies in arms who did not know Germans from Belgians, to sons just on the safe side of fifteen years, at which age the German authorities will not permit emigration, who are ready to stamp and fight with fists at mere mention of the Belgian invaders. Eightyfour of them were under ten years of age. The Maze at the Island. If it had not been for Miss Marguerite Van de Casteele, interpreter, who came from Belgium 13 years ago, many a little refugee would have ducked under the bars into the wrong compartment and have been sent off to the hospital, to the laun-dry-room, or wherever that particular penful were bound. Ellis Island is a place where you dumbly follow your nose. Enclosures that lead astray are those which the traveller would have to enter by jumping i/er or crawling under bars and rope fences. Little sons of Belgium, carrying immense packs and boxes, were prone to wander. They were heads of families; it was plain enough in their faces. Serious, thoughtful boys, they were. Caps were stuffed into their pockets. Lit tie tight jackets and long breeches made them look like ancient lit tie men of the art galleries. Stories lurked in their clear, clean faces. Could one little boy of Beige speak hks mind, it surely would have been: "First we dragged our bundles through Belgium and Holland to the steamer. It was a long journey. The mother was sad at leaving. I was hungry at times, and sister there spoke out during the nights. We gained the steamer, and thereupon were free to sing. It was good to sing Belgian songs after having been kept so silent so long by the Germans. I played with the children, and the German children fought with us. The steamer men separated us. Eighteen days we sailed on the ocean. There was sickness with mother, and I had a large headache. Smells followed us. New York came at last in great rawness and cold. But we could not get off the ship. All others seemed to be going. We could just look down on the long sheds of New York full of persons rushing. It was night. This was America 1 But it will be better later on, surely. "We soon sailed away from America on another smaller ship, where we slept all night. Men continually

asked mother questions. On the next day we sailed away again and waited outside a big red building. No one told us why we could not go to our father in America. My mother knew nothing She was sad. Sister cried. It rained. Still we waited on the little boal. A man said it was Ellis Island; that the men to receive us were having their dinner ami could not just then. Finally we went into the red building, upstairs. Questions the blue-cap again asked my mother and me. We waited. A holy father spoke to us in Flemish through the bars, but we could not get near enough to (ell him about our trouble. "Finally, the blue-cap said we could get our railway ticket to father. It was a long lime. The railway man had gone to lunch. We waited another time. We were very sleepy. The children slept on the floor. A blue-cap took Idalie and looked down her throat. We may all go to father in America, but dear Idalie. She must stay because of measles. We all stay. "Our father must wait. But he does not know why; he thinks we have not come. Our mother is sad. They have taken Idalie away from us; out in the rain on a cart to another building. She will get more measles out in the rain. I have nowasked our saint to find the little lady who can talk our Flemish to help us. Will she come before it is dark? I wonder." No Christmas. They said that there was no Christmas. In their overwise minds, they thought the war was responsible for the omission. Christmas, one of them said, must have had headquarters in America; here there seemed to be a few picture cards, popcorn, and tasselled caps left over which the immigration missionaries gave them. Picture cards helped Jean, three years old, to stop crying at least two minutes and survey his father and mother who stood before him for the first time since he was left in Belgium, five weeks eld, before the war came. On the ship coming over, he became attached to a fresh-faced Belgian girl whom he called his "auntie." He preferred her far more than this new mother who cried almost as hard as he did because she was not accepted at once at face Vi.lue. What really solved the whole situation was the hot bath that the real mother gave last night to son Jean. What isn't in a hot bath? Domination, ownership, and a divesting power from the small part in the bath that makes him turn for refuge to the waiting arms.