A LAND OF RUIN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11254, 7 December 1914, Page 1

A LAND OF RUIN.

BELGIUM'S DESOLATION. (Received December 7, 11 a.m.) LONDON, December 6. Mr Waters, representative of the American "Christian World," has returned from a tour of Belgium. He saw over one thousand poorly clad women in ! Antwerp, many snuggling babies to \ their breasts, waiting in the snow and slush for doles of food under the shadow of a big hotel where German soldiers i ■ were making merry. Between Antwerp and Brussels the road was full of refugees tramping homewards to ruined villages. It was like journeying through a huge cemetery. Graves were everywhere, always between ruined houses. The graves were marked with" bayonets, caps and helmets, and one by a child's shoe. ; There was desolation all tound. Trees had been felled, crops had run to seed and were rotting, and women .were grubbing in the ruins of their former homea. There is only two weeks' food supply in Brussels. TDRKISH MINISTER'S THREAT. (Received December 7, 11 a.m.) CONSTANTINOPLE, December 6. Sir Edwin Pears has been arrested and his office serached. Talaat Bey, Minister of the Interior, threatens, unless two persons presumably the Turkish emissaries arrested at Port Said, are released forthwith, that he will seize Britishers as: hostages. (Sir Edwin Pears settled in Constantinople in 1573 and became president of the European Bar in that city in 1881.) MUST NOT PKOTOSRAPH RDINS. (Received December 7, 11.15 a.rn.) ANTWERP, December 6. The Germans severely punish the photographing of ruins caused by the war - ________________