The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1916 FOR THOSE WHO MOURN.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 16775, 16 October 1916, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle. "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." MONDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1916 FOR THOSE WHO MOURN.

The heavy casualty lists of the past

few weeks have plunged many a New Zealand home into sorrow, and, alas, there are quite a number of mourners in this district who have a pathetic and sacred interest in the graveyards o: France. That interest, unhappily, is destined to grow yet deeper as the graves on i rench soil mu-t'ply in which sleep the dust of our gallant lads. A correspondent writes to the .London "Spectator" telling how he visited the cemetery at Rouen, where many British and Australasian soldiers lie. He lound almost evary grave planted with forget-me-nots. "No grave," he ssys,, "was without its tribute of green leaves and turquoiso buds;" and he found that all this planting had been done by n .French lady. "She had sown the seed, ana raised the innumerable plants, and gone, day by day, with her gardener and her wheelbairow, to deck +-he graves of men not cne of whom she had ever known in life, though, sttrely, she is now their friend. I was told that sometimes she would watch - British soldier's funeral coming down the road from the hospitals, and would follow it, to the grave, if there were not relatives or friends of the dead man there —'to represent,' as she espiessed it; 'the mother, or the wife, or the sister, and to say the prayer they would hay* said by the deeping soldier's bedside.' " The correspondent, Mr G. W. James, says: "i had the privilege oi making this dear lady's acquaintance. 'It is nothing that 1 have dene,' she said. *lf my boy had lived t.> grow up, he would have been in the Army, and. only too probably, killed. I thought how sad I should have been, had his grave bean far away, and I unable to" watch over it. So 1 though*, too, ox the British women whose dear ones were buried here in Rouen, and tried to do something of what they would do were they here.' " Mr James noticed that several graves were as beautifully adorned as if the relations wer3 close at hand. He ventured the suggestion that this was due to the kindly handiwork of comrades stationed in tha /ocality. "No, Monsieur," was the reply, "each of those graves is tended by a Frenchwoman who will never see her

own son's grave, for no one can ever tell her where it is. So she takes one of your soldiers' graves to care for, as she cannot care for her son's." The "Southern Ooss," of Melbourne, describes this loving work or_the womevi of France as a singularly beautiful touch of the tenderest human nature breaking out in the black landscape ot this terrible war. "This lady," says Mr James, "told me^that she had made many attempts to discover the addresses of relatives of those buried at;

Rouen, with the intention of writing to

them and offering to take their graces ' under her especial charge, placing there such flowers as they might desire, etc. Unfortunately, her efforts had not met with much success, and she allows me Vo Bay that if anvcne who reads this lt-iter would like to write to her about any grave, whether of pi-

vate soldier of officer, she would 'je only too glad to do what she can. Her address b Mmc, Cornet, JL.es Bruyeres, fcjotteville-les-Rouen, France.' These lines, in all j/iobability, iwill bo read b> many in this district who mourn lor those they loved lying in unknown praves "somewhere in France," ani they may be glad to know the address here given of this generous-hearth lady.