gone one mile of the distance when we began to meet people coming in the opposite direction. A small white-faced boy in a milk cart that early every morning makes its Scarborough rounds showed us a piece of shell he had picked up and said it had first struck a man a few yards from him and killed the man. A woman carrying a basket told us, with trembling lips, that men and women were lying about the streets dead. The postman assured us that Scarborough was in flames. A road worker told us we should be turned back, and another man warned us to beware of a big hole in the road further along, large enough to swallow our horse and trap; yet we could certainly see no flames issuing from Scarborough, which now lay directly before us.

We put up the horse at a stable on the very edge of the city and walked up the steep hill. The hotelkeeper and his wife, we were told, were already refugees."

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Scarborough is a sprawling town that stretches a length of about three miles from the extreme north end to the extreme south. Inland about a mile and a half is a wireless station, and on the cliff, 300 feet high, stands the ruined castle and its walled-in grounds, in the midst of which is or was, for it was yesterday blown clean away—a signal station Although there are barracks, the town is unfortified. A seaside resort of considerable importance, its population varies by many thousands in Winter and Summer, with a stationary population of 45,000. But to compensate for its Summer losses are the numerous fashionable schools for both boys and girls.

We did not meet a deserted city when we entered. The streets were thronging. There was a Sunday hush over everything without the accompanying Sunday clothes, but people moved about or stood at their doorways. Many of the shop fronts were boarded up and shop windows were empty of display. The main street, a narrow passageway that clambers up from the sea and points due west, was filled with a procession that slowly

At

The damage to property did not first reach our attention. But as we walked down the main street and then up it with the procession we saw that shops and houses all along had windows smashed next to windows unhurt. first we thought the broken windows were from concussion, but apparently very few were so broken; there was not much concussion, but the shells, splintering as they exploded, had flown redhot in every direction. The smoke we had seen had come from fires quickly extinguished. Scarborough was not "in flames."

We left the main business street and picked our way toward the Foreshore and the South Cliff, the more fashionable part of town as well as the school section. Here there was a great deal of havoc, and we had to climb over some of the débris. Roofs were half torn off and balancing in mid-air; shells had shot through chimneys, and some chimneys tottered, while several had merely round roles through the brickwork; mortar, bricks, and glass lay about the streets; here a third-story room was bare to the view, the wall lifted out as for a child's dollhouse and disclosing a single bedroom with shaving materials on the bureau still secure; there a drug store lay fallen into the street, and the iron railing about it was torn and twisted out of shape. A man and a boy had just been carried away dead. All around small pieces of iron rail and ripped-up asphalt lay scattered. Iron bars were driven into the woodwork of houses; there were great gaps in walls and roofs; the attack had not spent itself on any one section of the city, but had scattered itself in different wards. The freaks of the shells

were as inexplicable as those of a great fire that destroys everything in a house except a piano and a mantelpiece with its bric-a-brac, or a flood that carries away a log cabin and leaves a rosebush unharmed and blooming.

Silent pedestrians walked along and searched the ground for souvenirs, of which there were aplenty. Sentries guarded houses and streets where it was dangerous to explore, and park benches were used as barriers to the public. All the cabs were requisitioned to take away luggage and frightened inhabitants. During the shelling hundreds of women and children, breakfastless, their hair hanging, hatless, and even penniless, except for their mere railway fares, had rushed to the station and taken tickets to the first safe town they could think of. There was no panic, these hatless, penniless women all asserted, when they arrived in York and Leeds. A wealthy woman whom I slightly know nearly rushed into my arms, her face very flushed, and told me that she had left the servants to pack her china and vases, and was now on her way to find a workman to dig a hole in the garden to receive them; as for herself, she would eat from kitchen dishes henceforth.

A friend of mine hurried into Scarborough by motor to rescue her sister, who was a pupil at one of the boarding schools. But it appeared that when the windows of the school began to crash the teachers hurried from prayers, ordered the pupils to gather hats and coats and sweet chocolate that happened to be on hand as a substitute for breakfast, and made them run for a mile and a half, with shells exploding about them, through the streets to the nearest out-ofScarborough railway station. My friend, after unbelievable difficulties, finally found her sister in a private house of a village near by, the girl in tears and pleading not to be sent to London; she had been told that her family's house was

probably destroyed, as it was actually on the seacoast.

On the other hand, instances of selfpossession were not lacking. Another school hard by took all its children to the cellars, where the teachers made light of the matter, and the frightened father of one very nervous child was pleasantly amazed to find his child much calmer than himself-and quite delighted with the experience. In St. Martin's Church, the Archdeacon was celebrating holy communion. Shells struck the roof of the church. The Archdeacon stopped the service for à brief moment to say:

“We are evidently being bombarded. But we are as safe here as we can be anywhere," and proceeded calmly with the service.

We left Scarborough at night. The exodus of inhabitants, school children, whose Christmas holidays began earlier by one day on account of the raid, and visitors continued steadily. The cabmen, so idle in Winter, were rejoiced to find that work for today would not be lacking.

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At this rate," said one of them to me as he lighted the carriage candles for our trap and handed me the reins, " if the Germans come again there'll be no one left for them to kill."

There is, the Admiralty tells us, no military significance in this event, and, from the British point of view, I doubt if a woman will ever be considered worthy of a hearing in anything military; but I presume there is some sort of significance from a real estate point of view in the holes made in the hotels and houses, and from the hospital point of view in the sad procession of stretchers. But however little significance the December bombardment of Scarborough has, it is certainly a surprise to be wakened by three hostile cruisers, and one must admit that the Kaiser has at least left his greetings of the season on the east coast.

L

ONDON, Dec. 7, 1914.-The story of how Baroness Hans Heinrich von Wolf, who was Miss Humphreys, well known in New York society, smuggled her husband into Germany after the beginning of the war past a British cruiser and two sets of British shipping inspectors so that he could fight for the Fatherland is revealed in news received here giving details as to the bestowal upon the Baron of the Iron Cross of the First Class.

Baron von Wolf and his wife, who is the daughter of a wealthy patent medicine manufacturer and whose stepfather is Consul General St. John Gaffney, at Munich, were on their plantation in German Southwest Africa, when the Kaiser ordered the mobilization. Being a reserve officer, the Baron started homeward on board a German steamship on July 29, and, fortunately for him, the Baroness accompanied him.

On receipt of wireless information that war had been declared, their ship promptly put into Rio Janeiro toward the middle of August, and it was two weeks later before the Wolfs found a neutral vessel headed for Holland.

In South American waters they were halted by a British cruiser, but although there were many German reservists among the passengers, the cruiser was so full of Germans already that she could not carry any more, so they were permitted to proceed.

Baron von Wolf left the ship "officially" at Vigo, Spain, his wife waving a tearful farewell to his imaginary figure on the tender. He was really secreted, through the connivance of a generously bribed steward, in a tiny closet, where he remained for twenty-four hours. Finally he was spirited into his wife's state

room, and during the rest of the voyage spent most of his time lying under her berth. All his meals, drinks, and cigarettes were brought in by the steward, who was in the plot, and, as the Baroness remarked laughingly to friends afterward, “I gained a frightful reputation as a heavy drinker and smoker, and one Mrs. Grundy even spread the scandalous report that I had a man in my room.”

British warships compelled the Dutch vessel to enter Falmouth, where the authorities searched her for contraband and reservists. Knowing that the Baroness was a German officer's wife, naval officials called upon her several times in the course of the two weeks during which the ship was forced to remain at Falmouth, but each time they found her either doing up her hair, whereupon they retreated hastily with apologies for the intrusion, or lying in her bunk, feigning illness. The ship manifest, of course, showed that Capt. von Wolf had disembarked at Vigo, and the Captain of the vessel, ignorant of the truth, swore that he had seen Capt. von Wolf on board the tender, waving to his wife on deck.

There was a further search at Dover, but von Wolf's hiding place was never discovered.

The Kaiser awarded the Iron Cross to von Wolf for capturing seven English soldiers single-handed near Ypres and for carrying dispatches in an automobile under a fire so hot that his chauffeur and two officers in a car following were killed.

As far as his neutrality will permit, Consul General Gaffney, in whose Munich residence the Baroness is living during the war, has indicated to friends his delight over the valor of his stepson-inlaw.

W

ARSAW, Oct. 15, 1914.Thousands of fugitives crowd the city. They come from all parts of Poland, but principally from the frontier towns and villages which the Germans have been ravaging for over six weeks.

It rends one's heart to hear of the sufferings of these poor refugees, who are mostly Jews, but with a considerable sprinkling of Poles and Lithuanians. Every available hall and every empty warehouse is filled with them. They must have shelter and food, and Warsaw has risen heroically to the task of providing them with these necessities. Yet how they suffer and what a struggle is theirs for bare existence!

My first visit was to the largest hall in Warsaw, called the Swiss Valley, where the large Philharmonic concerts are usually held and which in ordinary times is the gathering place of society. It is now converted into a refuge for 600 or 700 homeless fugitives, who have left their all behind them and fled in terror, frequently on foot, for many miles, and carrying their possessions on their backs. The majority are old men, women, and children. In the babel of voices are frequently heard pitiful cries of poorly fed children, shrieks of more lusty ones, and groans and wailings of mothers who still seem stunned and stupefied by their frightful experiences.

Dinner was being served when I arrived. At several tables sat women, many with babies in arms, and children, while men were being served in one of the large corridors. Standing in endless rows, they took their turn at the steaming pots. In the main hall many fugitives were crouching on the floor, some on mattresses, and piled about them

were little mounds of household effects that they had succeeded in saving from their wrecked and ruined homes. It was truly a picture of direst misery, and in the faces of young and old one could read calamity.

Kalisch is probably a heap of ruins, these recent arrivals tell me, and of the usual population of 65,000 barely 2,000 are left. German soldiers have abandoned the city, but are quartered three or four miles away, in the village of Oputook. Kalisch is only a fortified camp, visited daily, however, by German cavalry, who use it as a reconnoitring base. All gardens have been destroyed and trees cut up for barricades, and even crosses from the cemetery have been displaced and used in fortification work.

Refugees tell dreadful stories of what they saw on their flight through this unfortunate part of Poland. Everywhere are burned and pillaged villages, towns destroyed, and gardens that are heaps of ashes and ruins.

One old man, formerly a country school teacher, saw three peasants hanging from a tree, with all the signs of having been frightfully tortured, as their arms and legs were broken in several places. They evidently had been accused of espionage and summarily executed. While telling me of this sight the old man fairly shock with the terror of reminiscence, and when he finished he was sobbing aloud.

How Warsaw is going to take care of these poor unfortunates is still an unsolved problem. Already a wave of unemployment is spreading in the city, and it will be impossible to find work for this enormous increase in the town's population. Some are being sent to the southern coal mines and others are being

employed on fortification works at Novo Georgieoak, but they are the pick of the lot. It is the old and infirm, the women and children, who must be provided for, and though contributions come in stead

ily, yet there is not half enough relief for all, and appeals are being made both to Petrograd and Moscow, cities which still are practically free from the horrors of war, for speedy help.

I

LVOFF (Lemberg), Oct. 17 1914. HAVE returned from a trip of several hundred kilometers through Galicia, covering the zone of the Russian conquest and subsequent occupation. I believe it is fair to consider the district traversed as typical of the general conditions in the existing conquered zones and of those prevailing during and after the fighting.

The portion traversed lies from Lwow in a southeasterly direction to Bessarabia, along the Carpathians and the line of retreat of the heavy Austrian column and the subsequent advance of Gen. Brussiloff. The situation at Halicz offers an opportunity to judge of the conduct of the Russians, as this position was occupied after considerable severe fighting near by. Gen. Brussiloff's advance was preceded by heavy masses of Cossacks, and two checks were experienced before this point was reached, and therefore it may be assumed that their blood was roused when Halicz was reached and any excesses or lack of control were to be expected here, where there are many Jews. The facts, which are obvious and not dependent upon hearsay or official confirmation, are that though this country was swept by a huge army, three divisions of Cossacks crossing the river at Halicz, besides a mass of infantry, there is in the rural districts no sign to indicate this deluge of a few weeks earler. The fields have at present an absolutely normal aspect, with stock grazing contentedly everywhere, while in

every village there are quantities of geese, chickens, and pigs. There are acres and acres of rich farming land, with grain still stacked, while the Autumn plowing and belated harvesting are proceeding as usual.

Nine villages through which the Russian armies swept give no sign of war having passed this way. At an occasional station or village a few destroyed buildings are seen, but these in every instance appear to have been places where the retreating Austrians halted or attempted to make stands, and the fire even at these points seems to have been carefully concentrated on strategic points-for instance, à town where the railway depot and a warehouse have been leveled. I was particularly impressed by the village of Botszonce, near Halicz. A few versts from there a stubborn fight lasting several days resulted in the abandonment of the Austrian line of resistance and a retreat, with a halt at Botszonce.

Hence the town was shelled, and the municipal offices and big buildings in the centre were utterly destroyed, but three buildings stand conspicuously among the ruins. These are two churches, and the Town Hall, with a spire resembling that of a church. The fact that the building next to the latter was leveled utterly, while not a single shell entered the supposed church, indicates that the Russian practice at 5,000 meters was sufficiently accurate to insure the protection of sacred edifices, while neighboring buildings were wrecked. It is also