cold came to take their toll among armies that already were thinned
by sickness and wounds.

The American Red Cross, by the terms of the Treaty of Geneva, gives aid
to the invalided and the injured soldiers of any army and all the
armies. If any small word from me, attempting to describe actual
conditions, can be of value to the American Red Cross in its campaign of
mercy, I write it gladly. I wish only that I had the power to write
lines which would make the American people see the situation as it is
now--which would make them understand how infinitely worse that
situation must surely become during the next few months.

*How Paris Dropped Gayety*

*By Anne Rittenhouse.*

[From THE NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 23, 1914.]

On Friday night the Grand Boulevards were alive with people, motors,
voitures, singing, dancing, and each cafe thronged by the gayest light
hearts in the world.

On Saturday night the boulevards were thronged with growling, ominous,
surging crowds, with faces like those of the Commune, speaking strong
words for and against war.

On Sunday night mobs tore down signs, broke windows, shouted the
"Marseillaise," wreaked their vengeance on those who belonged to a
nation that France thought had plunged their country into ghastly war.
Aliens sought shelter; hotels closed their massive doors intended for
defense. Mounted troops corralled the mobs as cowboys round up
belligerent cattle. Detached groups smashed and mishandled things that
came in the way.

Monday night a calm so intense that one felt frightened. Boulevards
deserted, cafes closed, hotels shuttered. Patrols of the Civil Garde in
massed formation. France was keeping her pledge to high civilization.
Yellow circulars were pasted on the buildings warning all that France
was in danger and appealing by that token to all male citizens to guard
the women and the weak.

At daylight only was the dead silence broken; France was marching to war
at that hour. Will any one who was here forget that daily daybreak
tramp, that measured march of the thousands going to the front? Cavalry
with the sun striking the helmets; infantry with their scarlet overcoats
too large; aviators with their boxed machines, the stormy petrels of
modern war; and the dogs, veritably the dogs of war, going on the
humanest mission of all, to search for the wounded in the woods of
battle.

And, side by side with the marching millions, on the pavement, were the
women belongin