Right there the scenes of misery make the hair stand
upon our heads.
Let us realize that the City of Kalisz alone has suffered not less than
40,000,000 rubles in loss of property. Representatives of Polish
municipalities with whom I had opportunity to discuss the situation told
me that in the City of Kalisz there is no longer a single drug store,
nor a grocery store, and there were about three thousand of them before.
There are numerous cities and villages where everything has been
pillaged by the German requisitions. Horses, cows, food, even
mattresses, have been taken away, and for all these ironical receipts
have been tendered: "So much worth of goods have been taken; the payment
for same will be made by the Russian Government."
Owing to the destruction of the inventory and the stock in the villages,
there is nothing to till the soil with, and the fields have to remain
unseeded.
Poland is indeed the Belgium of Russia. Belgium is aided by England and
France, but there is nobody to help Poland except us. The appeal of the
Commander in Chief has promised, in case of Russian victory, the
political regeneration of Poland, with her own religion, with her own
language, and with her own self-government. But before the political
regeneration we have to think of the saving of the unfortunate country
from starvation.
_This must be above all our national, Russian affair.
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