206 THE YPRES TIMES is flaunted outside her booth, offers her charms for inspection at the rate of one franc (or i|d.) per head. A miniature railway running through a circular tunnel, motor-cars on tracks, and weird animals curvetting round on revolving platforms cater for the little ones, while the grandmothers, their daughters and grand daughters, scramble into the swing-boats and aeroplanes, to the huge delight of the perambulating crowds. Various gambling games attract the more sophisti cated, and in the shooting gallery is a gaily painted figure of a lady surprised in an advanced state of négligé, and who, on being potted in a well marked spot, hastily adjusts her disarray. Here and there among the crowds one meets groups of pilgrims who have come from all over the world to visit the battlefields and cemeteries of the Salient, and who join wholeheartedly in the merriment, forgetting for the moment their travel-weariness. All this and much more under the shadow of the scaffolded walls of the old Cloth Hall. Each day's programme varies. Religious ceremonies are followed by distributions of prizes to school-children, and gymnastic displays. Guild meetings succeed to classical concerts given in one of the many public squares. Band promenades by the local garrison or by some of the many clubbands from the provinces, have their crowds of devotees who sit comfortably on the café terraces and imbibe their bocks while listening with the air of connoisseurs who are not to be too easily pleased. The Cercle William Tell local champions of the bow and arrow, Flanders' favourite sporthold competitions and reunions for visiting members and teams. And in the rendezvous of the different political organizations there is much talk and disputation, accompanied by the inevitable bock and cigars. Flanders, too, has her Sinn FeinAnd all over the city are notices calling on the citizens to re-affirm their loyalty to King and Country, and so signalize their disapproval of those who agitate, and, at times, with force! for complete independence for West Flanders and for complete severance of their ties with Belgium and her King. Flanders, the cock-pit of Europe, spoil of any and every adventurer, claims to stand alone. So much for the vaunted lessons of history. In the evening a famous trick-cyclist pays a flying visit to give a short display in the crowded Grande Place and then the crowds begin to thin out. Some drift to the cafés to smoke and gossip till midnight, others to their homes or hotels, and by far the greater number set off on 'buses or bicycles for the neighbouring towns and villages. But, at 9 o'clock, when the festivities are showing signs of quietening down, a crowd of some 200 gathers in and around the immense pile of the Menin Gate. A white-helmeted policemen, at either approach, holds up the road traffic, while four buglers in the red, blue, and gold of the Municipality blow the Last Post on silver bugles presented to the city in memory of those who died in her defence. Tired-eyed women stand silent and motionlesstears very near the surface. A crippled ex-officer, stiff as a ramrod on his crutches, chokes convulsively. Black-clad Belgians, who have listened to the Call night after night for years, stare unseeingly as at some figment of the past recalled by the plaintive notes. A figment of the Past°r, mayhap, a haunting fear for the future? A sudden shower of rain fills the cafés to overflowing, and is gone as quickly as it came. A few of the more sturdy,, or less tired, of the Pilgrims stroll out past the Gate towards the Menin Road, there to stand and stare across the distances of the night. Tiny lights, almost too distant to be seen, outline roughly the run of the old Salient. St. Jean, Hooge, Zillebeke, and, down south, Wytschaete, with all their wealth of associa tions, and over all a brooding sense of waitingfor what? A last look round, perhaps a whispered prayerthen back, and so to bed. Tuindag has begun. John A. Sheahan.

HISTORISCHE KRANTEN

The Ypres Times (1921-1936) | 1933 | | pagina 16