Prisoners Build Railway.

New York Times 100 years ago today, November 12, 1912:
Bulgaria Puts 8,000 Men to Work on Line to Kirk-Kilisseh.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Tuesday, Nov. 12.— A telegram to The Times from Sofia says:
    "The Bulgarian authorities are taking active steps to improve communications with the army before Tchatalja.
    "Before the outbreak of the war a narrow-gauge railway had been in process of construction from Yamboli, to Kizil-Agach, but after the fall of Kirk-Kilisseh the Government decided to make the railway ordinary gauge between Yamboli and Kizil-Agach and Kirk-Kilisseh, by which trains can be run to Lule-Burgas and Tchatalja.
    "About 8,000 men, mostly Turkish prisoners, are now working on the new railway. The portion from Yamboli to Kizil-Agach, about forty kilometers, is already finished, and the remaining forty kilometers to Kirk-Kilisseh will be ready for traffic in about a fortnight.
    "Yesterday at the Philippopolis Railway Station Queen Eleonore, in presenting to the Macedonian Volunteers a banner worked by her own hands, spoke as follows:
    " 'Sons of Macedonia and Thrace: I hand you this flag as a token of sincere respect and admiration for your well-known bravery. Your struggles and sufferings have won the admiration and sympathy of the whole world. The least I can do is to give expression to this sympathy and admiration.
    " 'The past affords a guarantee that you will worthily bear and guard the flag I now give you, that you will console the disconsolate and restore peace where misery now reigns.
    "Gen. Geneff, Commander of the Macedonian Legion, received the flag from the hands of her Majesty kneeling, and returned thanks for the precious gift."