"that's all these children are. They've no stamina.
Sugar-beets are the most economic means of just keeping the body and
the soul together."

The lights are going out in the Casino. It is the hour when, in
the old days, life would be becoming most feverish about the gaming
tables. In little forlorn groups the repatries are being conducted
to their temporary quarters in the town. To-morrow morning before it
is light, another train-load will arrive, the band will again play
the Marseillaise, the American Red Cross workers will again be in
attendance, the gentleman in the top-hat and white-tie will again make
his fiery oration of welcome, his audience will again pay no attention
but will weep softly--the tediously heart-rending scene will be
rehearsed throughout in every detail by an entirely new batch of
actors. Twice a day, summer and winter, the same tragedy is enacted at
Evian. It is a continuous, never-ending performance.

Poor people! These whom I have seen, if they have no friends to claim
them, will re-start their journey to some strange department on which
they will be billeted as paupers. Here again the American Red Cross is
doing good work, for it sends one of its representatives ahead to see
that proper preparations have been made for their reception. After
they have reached their destination, it looks them up from time to
time to make sure that they are being well cared for.

If one wants to picture the case of the repatrie in its true misery,
all he needs to do is to convert it into terms of his own mother or
grandmother. She has lived all her life in the neighbourhood of Vimy,
let us say. She was married there and it was there that she bore
all her children. She and her husband have saved money; they are
substantial people now and need not fear the future. Their sons are
gaining their own living; one daughter is married, the others are
arriving at the marriageable age. One day the Hun sweeps down on them.
The sons escape to join the French army; the girls and their parents
stay behind to guard their property. They are immediately evacuated
from Vimy and sent to some city, such as Drocourt, further behind
the Hun front-line. Here they are gradually robbed of all their
possessions. At the beginning all their gold is confiscated; later
even the mattresses upon their beds are requisitioned. For three and
a half years they are subjected to both big and petty tyrannies,
till their spirits are so broken that fea