[THE SMILE IS GONE.]
Entrained Austrian and German troops who came from the Yser, presumably on the way east, were a sight very comforting for the people of Brussels, on account of the depressed bearing of the men. Their uniforms were soiled and tattered, and they looked worried. The spectators remembered the former haughty and ardent look of the same men.
The troops wore flowers in their helmets, and had written on the car sides "To St. Petersburg," but they could not raise a single "Hoch!" among them.
The wounded continue to pour into Ghent. The town council is so pressed for money it has imposed taxes on beer, fuel, petroleum, and yeast.
[WHIPPED FOR ROBBING GIRL.]
When the Cossacks raided Ropezica, according to the Cracow Nova Reforma, they robbed the house in which a Polish girl was housekeeper. The girl hurried to the commander of the Cossacks, who lived at a hotel.
"I told him my trouble," she said, "whereupon he asked me: 'Are you a Pole or a Jew?' I replied that I was a Pole. 'Well, then, I shall go and see these fellows myself.'
"He took a nagaika (whip) and accompanied me to the house of my employer.
"Then he called to the Cossacks, who had in the meantime broken open a trunk and were just in the act of taking various things away, to come upstairs and showed every one what position he was to take, after which he whipped their faces and chests until they began to bleed. I screamed with horror. He repeated the procedure. Then he asked me: