r, are still straggling in or are lingering by
the way, some of the latter dying and some finding shelter in small
towns between the twin big cities and the front.

[Sidenote: Millions of refugees.]

[Sidenote: People of all ranks and stations.]

Some estimates place the number of Russian refugees at from ten to
fifteen million; thirteen million is the estimate of the Tatiana
Committee, one of the most influential relief organizations in Russia,
named after the second daughter of the Czar, who is its honorary head.
By race the refugees are principally Poles, Jews, Letts, and
Lithuanians, but they come from all ranks and stations of life, rich and
poor alike, now all poor, thrown from their homes with nothing but the
clothes on their bodies by the grim chances of war.

[Sidenote: Thousands must starve and freeze.]

In times of peace and prosperity the sudden impoverishment of such a
large mass of people would tax the relief and charity of Russia to the
limit; but now, when all food prices are from one hundred to three
hundred per cent higher than before the war--when even the well-to-do
have difficulty to get enough bread, sugar, and coal--it is inevitable
that thousands of these homeless ones should starve and freeze to death.
Thousands have already suffered this fate, but hundreds of thousands,
perhaps a million or more, will die this way before spring unless relief
comes quickly and bountifully from abroad, for Russia cannot cope with
the emergency alone. Unless Russia's allies or neutrals begin at once to
pour into Russia a stream of food to fill the stomachs of these hungry,
homeless ones, this will be the bitterest winter in Russian history, a
winter whose horrors will far transcend the terrible winter of 1812,
when Napoleon ravaged Poland and sacked Moscow.

[Sidenote: Great Britain must bolster weaker allies.]

Great Britain, who is holding up some of her weaker allies in many ways,
sweeping mines from the White Sea for Russia, and with France bolstering
the remnant of the Belgian army in Flanders, is doing much to alleviate
the suffering of Russia's refugees by unofficial action. The Great
Britain to Poland Fund, organized and supported by such prominent
Britons as Lady Byron, Viscount Bryce, the Duke of Newcastle, the Earl
of Rosebery, and the Lord Mayor of London, at the instance of Princess
Bariatinsky, who is better known as the famous Russian actress, Madame
Yavorska, is feeding between 4,000 and 7,0