The Ghent correspondent of the London Daily News says in a despatch:

“I have just been talking to the latest refugees from Malines. They left there yesterday about 4 o’clock, during a lull in the fighting. Out of 60,000 inhabitants, a business man among them told me, hardly 200 are left in town. Many are dead. The rest have fled.

“‘It has been hell,’ he said, ‘since Monday. The town was shelled from both sides. The cathedral, the square and half the houses are in ruins. Old people and young have been killed. Yesterday I found a quiet old gentleman of 83, whom I have known for years, lying in one of the trenches by the roadside, utterly exhausted by his flight. His face was in a pool of water.

“‘Of a family of seven who were friends of ours not one is left. A shell struck their house on Tuesday morning, and all were killed.’”