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be abandoned. The roof is crushed in, the glass is shattered from the windows, the rooms are full of débris. Through the little window of a basement, however, come childish voices, singing "Il était une bergère," and in a setting which recalls the old schools of 1830 you see a soldier or a nun surrounded by a group of children. Sometimes it happens that the song is interrupted by the screech of a shell, and then everybody descends to the cellar, where the boys avenge themselves for having felt the wind of fear by singing the "Marseillaise."

The school life is so closely mingled with the military life that the teachers, no matter what their station, feel like soldiers. And so do the pupils. Most of them have adopted the French uniform, not without fantasy and variety. One might say that every army corps, all arms, and all ranks are represented in each class. Very often the schoolhouse itself is divided between the children and the soldiers. In the corridors or the court the urchins and poilus rub elbows and have grown very fond of each other. The little boys already have very decided ideas as to the regiment or army which they will choose when the time comes for them to serve France. The little girls devote themselves to caring for the graves of soldiers who have fallen for their country.

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The Death Plunge of a Zeppelin

A Night Episode Near London

HIRTEEN Zeppelin airships took part in a raid over the eastern counties of England on the night of Saturday, Sept. 2, the most formidable aerial attack thus far recorded in history. Three of the great airships reached the outskirts of London, where their bombs killed a man and a woman, and injured eleven other persons, including two children. The dramatic and spectacular feature of the episode was the destruction of one of these three invaders high in air by a British youth of 21, Lieutenant Robinson, who got above

it in an aeroplane and sent it flaming to earth with its doomed German crew of sixteen men. As London's millions saw it fall, it was a historic night for that city. One eyewitness thus describes the event:

"I was awakened about 2:30 o'clock Sunday morning by the information that gunfire was going on. Looking from my windows I saw the flashes of the guns in all directions. In a certain direction especially there was a great display of searchlights. Suddenly there appeared a glow in the sky which in

creased in intensity until it became something like a great star. This clearly assumed the shape of a Zeppelin at a great height. It looked like a mass of molten metal such as one sees falling out of a furnace pipe, or a bar of polished steel about the thickness of an engine piston rod. It seemed to remain motionless and undecided which way to go while the guns peppered it without cessation.

"Shells burst around it, in front and behind, above and below, and it made a turn as if to go in the direction of the coast, but a shell burst ominously near its nose and caused it to swing around in the opposite direction.

"Then away up there in the centre of the ball of light something happened. It seemed as if a black shadow passed between our vision and the brilliant light. In the sky when we looked again the airship had gone. Firing ceased and the searchlights, splitting

their focused

rays, shot backward and forward across the firmament, but the Zeppelin was gone. Under cover of a cloud of smoke she had made a wild dash upward beyond the ray of light and through the ring of bursting shells.

"Suddenly, away further to the north, a ball of fire in the sky riveted our attention. The ball spread in size, and there was a great explosion. The whole of London, north, south, east, and west, was illuminated by the one flash. The dome of St. Paul's and the towers at Westminster, hitherto obscured, stood out with remarkable clearness, and for a brief second it looked as if a panorama of the whole of London had been thrown upon a screen in a darkened hall.

"There was no need now to speculate as to the fate of the invader. Persons who came out into the streets raised cheer after cheer and sang the national anthem. The burning Zeppelin could now be seen falling nose downward to the earth like a huge blazing caldron from which poured a spray of sparks."

The airship fell near the hamlet of Cuffley, fifteen miles from London and not far from Enfield, where the rifles of that name are made, and where the factory was undoubtedly the objective of the

raider. A resident of the farm on which it fell says it came down like a huge incandescent mantle with an orange centre of flame. It fell headlong with a terrible, tearing sound, and struck the ground with a crash that could be heard for miles around.

When daylight came sixteen charred bodies were taken out of the débris and laid in a row on the grass, where 100,000 people from London came flocking to see them. The crowds went out afoot, in taxicabs, motor cars, charabancs, pony carts—anything to reach the picturesque country spot where lay the mangled airship. A never-ceasing string of motor cars, dashing along the fifteen-mile run from London to Cuffley, aroused memo ries of the days when the cup races used to be run. So thick were the motor cars that at many spots along the way they became choked in the roads so that travel was badly clogged.

On the morning after the event it was discovered that the Zeppelin had been brought to earth, not by the anti-aircraft guns below, but by an intrepid boy in a biplane-Lieutenant Leete Robinson of the Royal Flying Corps-who has since received the Victoria Cross.

This was the first Zeppelin brought down on English soil, (one was destroyed off the mouth of the Thames a few months ago,) hence Lieutenant Robinson received cash rewards aggregating $3,000 which had been offered by private individuals for this achievement.

The bodies of the German youths who had given up their lives on this dangerous expedition were buried on Sept. 6 in the little country cemetery amid the hayfields about Cuffley, with simple Church of England services, followed by the sounding of taps, as arranged by the Royal Flying Corps. The bodies of the fifteen privates were laid in one large grave, while that of the commander was buried separately in a coffin whose inscription revealed the number of the airship:

"An unknown German officer killed while commanding the L-21, Sept. 3, 1916."

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French Territory

The French Government has issued a White Book addressed to neutral nations, in which it protests against certain illegal acts of the German military authorities toward the civilian population in the French departments occupied by the enemy. During the days just before and after Easter, 1916, about 25,000 French subjects, ranging from young girls of 16 to men of 55 years, without distinction of social condition, were torn from their homes and families at Roubaix, Tourcoing, and Lille, and deported to the Aisne and Ardennes districts, where they were compelled by force or threats to work in the fields. Germany defends the act on the ground that it was necessary because of food scarcity. The Allies denounce it as slavery. It has aroused indignation throughout France and England and added a new note of bitterness to the conflict. The more important documents on the subject are presented below.

FR

Statement by M. Briand

ROM time to time the Government of the Republic has had occasion to advise the neutral powers of the means, contrary to treaties, employed by the German military authority toward the populations of the French territory temporarily occupied by Germany. The Government of the Republic finds itself today compelled to place before the foreign Governments documents which will furnish the proof that our enemies have adopted new measures which are still more inhuman.

Upon the order of General von Graevenitz and with the assistance of Infantry Regiment 64, sent by the German General Headquarters, about 25,000 French, young girls from 16 to 20 years old, young women and men up to the age of 55 years, without distinction of social condition, were torn from their homes at Roubaix, Tourcoing, and Lille, pitilessly separated from their families, and forced to do agricultural work in the Departments of the Aisne and Ardennes.

Better than any comments the posters of the German authorities, the painful protests of the Mayor and Bishop of Lille, and the extracts from letters which have come from these localities, and which are annexed to this statement, will illustrate this new deed of the German Imperial Government.

Here is the recital of the facts as given us by the Minister of War on June 30, 1916:

"The Germans, not content with sub

jecting our population of the north to all series of vexations, have just inflicted upon them the most iniquitous of treatments. In contempt of the most universally recognized rules and of their most positive promise not to harass the civil population, they have torn women and young girls from their families, and, mingling them with men, have shipped them for unknown destinations and unknown labors.

"In the first days of April posters offered to unemployed families to settle them in the country in the departments of the north to work in the fields or to chop down trees. This endeavor having met with poor success, the Germans decided to resort to force. Beginning April 9, they are found carrying on wholesale arrests in the streets and in homes, carrying away pell-mell men and young girls and shipping them no one knows where.

"The measure was soon to become general and to be used in more methodical fashion. A General and numerous troops arrived at Lille, among others the Sixtyfourth Regiment, coming from Verdun; on April 29 and 30 a notice to the population was posted in which it was requested to hold itself ready for a forced evacuation. Immediately the Mayor protested, the Bishop sought the commander of the place, the Elders sent indignant letters; nothing availed.

"On Saturday of Holy Week at 3 o'clock in the morning methodical wholesale arrests began at Lille, starting with the Fives quarter, Tourcoing, starting

with the Marlière quarter, and at Roubaix. After an interruption for Easter Sunday the operation was resumed during the whole week, ending at Lille in the St. Maurice quarter. Toward 3 o'clock in the morning the streets were barred by troops with fixed bayonets and a machine gun set up across the sidewalk against unarmed people. The soldiers entered the houses, and officers designated the persons who were to go, and half an hour later every one was carried away pell-mell to a nearby factory, and from there to the railroad station for departure. Mothers with children under 14 years were spared; young girls below 20 years old were carried away only with a person of their family, but this does not lessen the barbarity of the measure. Soldiers of the Landsturm were visibly embarrassed to find themselves employed for such work.

"The victims of this brutal deed showed the greatest courage. They were heard crying Long live France!' and singing 'La Marseillaise' in the cattle cars which carried them away.

"It is said that the men are employed at farming, road work, munitions making, and digging trenches. The women are required to cook and wash for the soldiers and to take the places of officers' orderlies.

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"Hence for these hard tasks servants, domestics, and working girls were taken in preference. In the Rue Royale at Lille there are no servant girls left, but young girls of courage were found in the middle class who did not wish to see only the young girls of the working class go. It is mentioned that the Misses B. and de B. insisted upon accompanying the girls of their neighborhood.

"These unfortunates, thus requisitioned, were dispersed from Seclin and Templeuve to the Ardennes. Their number is estimated at 25,000 for the cities of Lille, Roubaix, and Tourcoing. The Place quarter of Lille, the townships of Loos, Haubordin, Madeleine, and Lambersart are said to have been spared."

Nothing can equal the emotion felt by the populations of the north of France without distinction of class during these

days of Holy Week. These facts surpass in inhumanity those which had oc curred previously. *

The German military authority, in orders posted at Lille, has seen fit to justify the wholesale exiles carried out at Lille and Roubaix as being the counterpart of the attitude of England in rendering the feeding of populations more and more difficult. Nothing can justify a measure so barbarous; the seizure of contraband, the stoppage of enemy commerce are acts of war; the deportation of population without military necessity is not one. Besides, in order to do justice to this pretended justification, it suffices to establish that not only has Germany profited through depriving the occupied territories of all products which would have assured the support of the inhabitants, but further has organized to its profit before all stoppage of enemy commerce the exploitation of the labor of French civilians.

Article 52 of the rule annexed to the Fourth Hague Convention authorizes the requisitioning in kind and in service for the needs of the army of occupation. There is no question in the depositions obtained of any regular form of requisition. Services sometimes of the most repulsive character were imposed by constraint upon the entire civilian population, without distinction of sex, age, or social condition. These unfortunates had to do the labor imposed upon them by night or day in places the most diverse and most distant from their residences, sometimes even under the fire of artillery, without remuneration of any sort in most cases, for some crusts of bread in others. The German military authority has never had any consideration for the population whose provisional administration has been secured to it by war. The fruits of the forced labor of this population have been shipped to Germany, despite the absolute destitution of the workers.

Finally, it may be noticed in the fol lowing depositions that the German au thorities did not hesitate to compel thes populations to take part in war opera tions against their country, even to th extent of taking part in the looting

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