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The Orchid Review c: 
VoL. XXVII. JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1919. No. 313-314. 
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OUR NOTE BOOK. Rte 
HE cessation of hostilities has had a bracing effect upon Orchidology, 
_ and we have again had the pleasure of seeing two magnificent ‘Gold 
Medal groups at the R.H.S. meetings, one staged by Messrs. Armstrong & 
Brown at the last meeting of the year, and another by Messrs. Charlesworth 
& Co. at the first January meeting. We have also a provisional promise of 
a resumption of the Spring Shows at Chelsea next May, by which time it is 
hoped that the Royal Horticultural Hall will again be available for the 
Society’s meetings. And we are pleased to hear that an attempt is being 
made to hold the next Quinquennial Show at Ghent in 1921. The prospect 
is cheering, and however long and difficult the work of reconstruction may 
be, it is evidently being taken in hand with a confidence that goes far to 
ensure success. 
We have now some further information respecting collections in the 
War area, from which we have been cut off for years. It will be found on 
later pages, and gives some idea of the extreme difficulties under which our 
Belgian confreres have laboured during a period of over four ycars. It also 
describes the terrible experience of M. Theodore Pauwels in seeing his 
house and -his fine Orchid Establishment at Meirelbeke completely 
demolished only a few hours before the signing of the Armistice. His 
family were removed to a place of safety two days before, when the destruc- 
tion began.. By that tragedy over sixty thousand seedling Orchids are said 
to have been destroyed, and only a small number could be saved owing to a 
severe spell of frost. We are familiar with the place, having visited: it 
twice, and we offer to M. Pauwels our sincere sympathy in his serious loss. 
He pluckily proposes to reconstruct the nursery, and it will doubtless be 
seen to that the bill goes to the proper quarter. — 
It is one of the tragedies of a war of unprecedented barbarity, and an 
example of what may occur under an insane ambition for world domination 
regardless of all other considerations. Civilisation narrowly escaped total 
submergence, largely by the intervention of our brethren across the seas, 
