Photograph by Herbert Con 

 CHARACTERISTIC COSTUMES IN THE SALONIKI STREETS 



This is a fair-sized town for the northern 

 Macedonian country. There are perhaps 

 150 houses scattered on the slopes of a 

 rocky hill or sunk in the abominable mud 

 of the Cerna Valley. Here the Bulga- 

 rians behaved "fairly well," the peasants 

 said. Some of the men were beaten, and 

 some were taken away to dig trenches, 

 and some ran away to the hills ; but the 

 town was not burned and the women 

 were not abused. The peasants were 

 grateful. 



AMERICAN NURSE FED THE STARVING AT 

 BROD 



When the Serbians took the town they 

 found several hundred of the people still 

 there. There was no food. The village 

 was under constant bombardment. Each 

 Macedonian peasant is a potential spy, 

 for lineage and allegiance are too mixed 

 for either side to place reliance in his 

 loyalty. The people of Brod were moved 

 out to the last man and baby. The Serbs 

 searched the houses one by one , and 

 looked under the caving bank of the 

 Cerna and hunted over the bare hillside. 

 There was none left. The village head- 

 man swore it. 



Yet a little later, when the Serbs had 

 given place to the Italians, the mired and 

 filthy streets of Brod suddenly became 

 alive with children. Children were every- 

 where ; starving children, impossibly dirty 

 children, children that were verminous 

 and pallid and so ragged that the snow 

 struck against bare flesh through the 

 holes in their garments. No men and 

 few women were seen at this time. The 

 Italian soldiers fed these little outcasts 

 with the scraps of their rations. A mili- 

 tary ration is scientifically adjusted to 

 the needs of the soldier. There is no ex- 

 cess to be devoted to charity. 



Miss Emily Simmonds, of the Amer- 

 ican Red Cross, relieved this situation. 

 Miss Simmonds secured an assignment 

 as nurse in a near-by hospital and while 

 there learned of the children's famine at 

 Brod. She moved in one night without 

 a pass, without a guard, and equipped 

 only with a small tent that was so im- 

 perfect a shelter that the constant rains 

 rotted the mattress of her bed. She took 

 a census of the starving ones. 



By this time there were 40 women and 

 200 children, and there was not a bite to 

 eat, nor a stick of fuel nor a blanket. 



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