"Are all these men and women who are living together married?" I
asked the Dutch officer in charge.

"It is not for us to inquire," he replied. "Most of them say that they
have lost their marriage certificates."

They were from the slums of that polyglot seaport town Antwerp,
which Belgians say is anything but real Belgium. To judge Belgium by
them is like judging an American town by the worst of its back streets,
where saloons and pawnshops are numerous and red lights twinkle
from dark doorways.

Around a table in a Rotterdam hotel one met some generals who
were organizing a different kind of campaign from that which brought
glory to the generals who conquered Belgium. It was odd that Dr.
Rose--that Dr. Rose who had discovered and fought the hook worm
among the mountaineers of the Southern States--should be
succouring Belgium, and yet only natural. Where else should he and
Henry James, Jr., of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Mr. Bicknell, of
the American Red Cross, be, if not here directing the use of an
endowment fund set aside for just such purposes?

They had been all over Belgium and up into the Northern
Departments of France occupied by the Germans, investigating
conditions. For they were practical men, trained for solving the
problem of charity with wisdom, who wanted to know that their money
was well spent. They had nothing for the refugees in London, but they
found that the people who had stayed at home in Belgium were
worthy of help. The fund was allowing five hundred thousand dollars a
month for the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, which was