began by the taking of hostages at the very outset of their possession of Roubaix. A number of the leading men in the civic and business life of the town were marked out and compelled to attend by turns at the Town Hall, to be shot on the spot at the least sign of revolt among the townspeople.

Not a few of the mill owners were ordered to weave cloth for the invaders, and on their refusal were sent to Germany and held to ransom. Many of the mill operatives, quite young girls, were directed to sew sandbags for the German trenches. They, too, refused, but the Germans had their own ways of dealing with what they regarded as juvenile obstinacy. They dragged the girls to a disused cinema hall, and kept them there without food or water until their will was broken.

Barbarity reached its climax in the so-called deportations." They were just slave raids, brutal and undisguised.

The procedure was this: The town was divided into districts. At 3 o'clock in the morning a cordon of troops would be drawn round a district-the Prussian Guard and especially, I believe, the Sixty-ninth Regiment, played a great part in this diabolical crime-and officers and noncommissioned officers would knock at every door until the household was roused. A handbill, about octavo size, was handed in, and the officer passed on to the next house. The handbill contained printed orders that every member of the household must rise and dress immediately, pack up a couple of blankets, a change of linen, a pair of stout boots, a spoon and fork, and a few other small articles, and be ready for the second visit in half an hour. When the officer returned, the family were marshaled before him, and he picked out those whom he wanted with a curt " You will come," "And you," "And you." Without even time for leave-taking, the selected victims were paraded in the street and marched to a mill on the outskirts of the town. There they were imprisoned for three days, without any means of communication with friends or relatives, all herded together indiscrim

inately and given but the barest modicum of food. Then, like so many cattle, they were sent away to an unknown fate.

Months afterward some of them came back, emaciated and utterly worn out, ragged and verminous, broken in all but spirit. I spoke with numbers of the men. They had been told by the Germans, they said, that they were going to work on the land. They found that only the women and girls were put to farm labor.

The men were taken to the French Ardennes and compelled to mend roads, man sawmills and forges, build masonry, and toil at other manual tasks. Rough hutments formed their barracks. They were under constant guard both there and at their work, and they were marched under escort from the huts to work and from work to the huts. For food each man was given a two-pound loaf of German bread every five days, a little boiled rice, and a pint of coffee a day. At 8 o'clock in the morning, after a breakfast consisting of a slice of bread and a cup of coffee, they went to work. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon they returned for the night and took their second meal-dinner, tea, and supper all in one. Often they were buffeted and generally ill-used by their taskmasters. If they fell ill, cold water, internally or externally, was the invariable remedy. Once a commission came to see them at work, but they had been warned beforehand that any man who complained of his treatment would suffer for it. One of them was bold enough to protest to the visitors against a particularly flagrant case of ill-usage. That man disappeared a few days later.

Saved by American Food

Long before this the food problem had become acute in Roubaix. Simultaneously with the establishment of the system of personal control over the inhabitants the Germans closed the frontier between France and Belgium and forbade us to approach within half a mile of the border line. The immediate effect of this isolation was to reduce to an insignificant trickle the copious stream of foodstuffs which until then poured in from Belgium-not the starv

ing Belgium of fiction, but the well supplied Belgium of fact.

Butchers and bakers and provision dealers had to shut their shops, and the town became almost wholly dependent on supplies brought in by the American Relief Commission. Fresh meat was soon unobtainable, except by those few people who could afford to pay fabulous prices for joints smuggled across the frontier. Months ago meat cost 32 francs a kilogram (about 13 shillings a pound) and an egg cost 1 franc 25, (a shilling.) Obviously such things were beyond the reach of the bulk of the people, and had it not been for the efforts of the Relief Commission we should all have starved.

The commission opened a food depot, a local committee issued tickets for the various articles, and rich and poor alike had to wait their turn at the depot to procure the allotted rations. The chief foodstuffs supplied were: Rice, flaked

maize, bacon, lard, coffee, bread, condensed milk, (occasionally,) haricot beans, lentils, and a very small allowance of sugar. Potatoes could not be bought at any price.

Hungry German Soldiers

Unfortunately, though I regret that I should have to record it, there is evidence that by some means or other the German Army contrived to intercept for itself a part of the food sent by the American Commission. One who had good reason to know told me that more than once trainloads which, according to a notification sent to him, had left Brussels for Roubaix failed to arrive. I know also that analysis of the bread showed that in some cases German rye flour, including 30 per cent. of sawdust, had been substituted for the white American flour, producing an indigestible putty-like substance which brought illness and death to many. Indeed, the mortality from this cause was so heavy at one period that all the grave diggers in the town could not keep pace with it.

One could easily understand how great must have been the temptation to the Germans to tap for themselves the food which friends abroad had sent for their victims. It is a significant fact that sol

diers in Roubaix were eager to buy rice from those who had obtained it at the depot at four francs (3s 4d) the pound in order, as they said, " to send it home." I shall describe later how utterly different were the conditions in Belgium as I saw them. (

Meagre as were the food supplies for the civilians in Roubaix, those issued to the German soldiers toward the end of my stay were little better.

At first the householders, on whom the soldiers were billeted, were required to feed them and to recover the cost from the municipal authorities.

sous.

Collection of Metals

In passing, I may mention that all ordinary money, gold, silver, and bronze, disappeared from circulation long ago. Some of it possibly was hidden by the townsfolk, but much more was collected by the Germans and sent out of the country. It was replaced by paper money of all denominations, even to cardboard After some months the billeting system was altered, and the German military authorities undertook the feeding of their men. From that time onward there was a progressive fall in the quantity and deterioration in the quality of the soldiers' daily rations. To the end they seemed to have no lack of jam, not plum and apple, but something red, which looked rather like raspberry. Often I have seen them walking along the street munching a thick slice of rye bread covered with a generous layer of this jam.

Just before I left, I was shown one day's menu provided for the troops. Breakfast consisted of dry bread and coffee, dinner of boiled barley, and supper of cooked beet root. It was some comfort to us to know that, while we could barely subsist, the Germans were evidently not much better off.

Conditions in Germany were reflected also in the systematic plundering of workshops and houses of everything made of brass, copper, pewter, or German silThe Germans began by taking all stocks of raw and combed wool, raw cotton, and raw silk from the warehouses, and followed this up by appropriating

ver.

all woolen piece goods. They next requisitioned all oil. Late last year they issued a proclamation calling upon the residents to declare to the military authorities what brass was in their possession. Of course, nobody paid any attention to the order.

A few days later parties of German soldiers went through the town, street by street, and seized every article of brass, bronze, or copper on which they could set eyes. Without ceremony they entered private houses, helped themselves to stair rods, brass or copper kettles and other cooking utensils, gas fittings, fittings from fireplaces, door plates, clothes hooks, and knickknacks of every kind. Nothing was overlooked. They took up brass-headed carpet pins; they even tore the candlesticks from pianos. The things were bundled into a cart, on the tail of which were scales, like those carried on coalmen's trolleys. Everything was weighed, and a receipt was given at the rate of 2 francs per kilogram, or 10 pence per pound. Bronze statuettes worth at least 500 francs were taken at the intrinsic cost of the metal.

The process was not confined to private houses or workshops. One day the Germans made a tour of the cafés and ripped off the pewter tops of the counters. They also went from shop to shop and carried away the brass trays from the scales. I saw one cart go along the street piled high with gramophone horns.

Hope of Conquest Gone

Of all the things I saw and heard in Roubaix and Lille none impressed me more than the wonderful change which came over the outlook and demeanor of the German soldiery between October, 1914, and October, 1915.

I had many opportunities of mingling with them, more, in fact, than I cared to have, for now and again during this period two or three of them were actually billeted on the good folk with whom I lodged.

I knew just sufficient of the German language to be able to chat with them, and they made no attempt to conceal from me their real feelings. I am merely repeating the statement made to me

over and over again by many German soldiers when I say that the men in the ranks are thoroughly tired of the war, that they have abandoned all thought of conquest, and that they fight on only because they believe that their homes and families are at stake.

On that Autumn morning when the first German troops came into Roubaix they came flushed with victory, full of confidence in their strength, marching with their eyes fixed on Paris and London. They sang aloud as they swung through our streets. They sing no more. Instead, as I saw with my own eyes, many of them show in their faces the abject misery which is in their hearts.

Last year scores of them told me, quite independently, that the war would come to an end on Nov. 17, 1916. How that date came to be fixed by the prophets nobody knew, but the belief in the prophecy was universal among the soldiers.

The Guns on the Somme

That was before the battle of the Somme. For days we in Roubaix heard the distant roaring of the guns in that great encounter. Night and day without ceasing their rumble sounded. We had grown accustomed to the sound of the guns about Ypres and Armentières; we had sat at our windows in the evening and watched the flashes in the darkness; we had even heard at night-time the rattle of machine guns. But we had never heard so continuous or so heavy a thunder as that which came to us from the Somme.

We were used, too, to the sight of wounded Germans brought in from the front; but Roubaix, and, still more, Lille, never witnessed such a constant stream of broken men as that which poured in last July and August.

In Roubaix alone, in addition to the town hospitals, the Germans had suddenly to improvise hospitals in the workhouse, the boys' college, and the girls' college. Every bed was filled, and to the rest of the wounded the doctors in Roubaix could give only such attention as is possible in a dressing station, pending their conveyance into Belgium.

I found among the soldiers a general agreement that they would infinitely rather face the French troops than the British. They attributed their greater fear of our men to the idea, probably mistaken, that our men were less ready than the French to make them prisoners as soon as they raised their hands and cried "Kamerad." I suspect, however, that the unnerving effect on the Germans of the Sir Douglas Haig system of trench raiding is the real explanation.

This is how a German soldier gave me his impression of the British raids: "They are the worst horror we have to contend with. The English seem to do it for sport, not for war. A bombardment is bad enough; but you know it is coming. You do not know when or where a raid is coming. These Englishmen daub their faces with clay, come along the ground on all fours, smother our advance posts, and are in our trenches before we know where we are. come not with rifles and revolvers, but with knives and sledge-hammers and bombs. We cannot use our rifles against them. They are too near, and perhaps we have not fixed our bayonets. We must either run or be killed. The English will clear a trench on a stretch of 150 yards and get away again without losing a man."

They

It would be difficult to exaggerate the genuine terror with which the raids have filled the German soldiers of all ranks and regiments.

Lawless Acts of Officers

As a rule, the soldiers did not maltreat the civilians in Roubaix, except when they were acting under the orders of their officers; when, for example, they were tearing people from their homes to work as slaves. They had, however, the right of traveling without payment on the tramcars, and they frequently exercised this right to such an extent as to preclude the townsfolk from the use of the cars.

Apart from that annoyance, there was little ground for complaint of the general behavior of the soldiers. The conduct of the officers was very different. For a long time they made a habit of

requisitioning from shopkeepers and others supplies of food for which they had no intention of paying. One day an officer drove up in a trap to a shop kept by an acquaintance of mine and bought" sardines, chocolate, bread, and fancy cakes to the value of about 200 francs, (about $40.) He produced a piece of paper and borrowed a pair of scissors with which to cut off a slip. On this slip he wrote a few words in German, and then, handing it to the shopkeeper, he went off with his purchases. The shopkeeper, on presenting the paper at the Kommandantur, was informed that the inscription ran, "For the loan of scissors, 200 francs," and that the signature was unknown. Payment was therefore refused. This case,

I believe, was by no means an isolated

one.

Brutal Methods of Officers

When an officer was billeted on a house, he would insist on turning the family out of the dining room and drawing room and sleeping in the best bedroom; sometimes he would eject people entirely from their home.

By contrast the docile private soldier was almost a welcome guest. I remember well one quite friendly fellow who was lodged for some time in the same house as myself and some English over military age in the suburb of Croix. He came to me in great glee one day with a letter from his wife in which she warned him to beware of "the English cutthroats." She went on to give him a long series of instructions for his safety. He was to barricade his bedroom door every night, to sleep always with his knife under his pillow, and never to take anything we offered him to eat or drink.

Despite the temptations to crime and insubordination which naturally attend an idle manufacturing population of some 125,000 people, there were very few civilian offenses against the law, German or French, among the inhabitants of Roubaix.

Time hung heavily on our hands. Cut off from the outer world except by the occasional arrival of smuggled French and English newspapers, we spent our

time reading and playing cards, and at the last I hoped I might never be reduced to this form of amusement again. In the two and a half years cut out of my life and completely wasted I played as many games of cards as will satisfy me for the rest of my existence.

But even if the inhabitants, in their enforced idleness, had any temptation to be insubordinate, they had a far greater inducement to keep the law in the bridled savagery of the German gendarmerie. These creatures, who from the color of their uniform and the brutality of their conduct were known as the "green devils," seemed to revel in sheer cruelty. They scour the towns on bicycles and the outlying districts on horseback, always accompanied by a dog as savage as his master, and at the slightest provocation or without even the slenderest pretext they fall upon civilians with brutish violence.

It was not uncommon for one of these men to chase a woman on his bicycle, and when he had caught her, batter her head and body with the machine. Many times they would strike women with the flat of their sabres. One of them was seen to unleash his dog against an old woman, and laugh when the savage beast tore open the woman's flesh from thigh to knee.

No Starvation in Belgium

In January Mr. Whitaker crossed the line into Belgium with the aid of smuggler friends, traversed that country, chiefly on foot, and two months later escaped into Holland and so to England. In Belgium he was astonished to find what looked like prosperity when compared with conditions in the occupied provinces of France. After expressing gratitude to Belgian friends and a desire to tell only what is truth, he proceeds:

The first fact I have to declare is that nowhere in my wanderings did I see any sign of starvation. Nowhere did I notice such privation of food as I had known in Northern France. Near the French frontier, it is true, the meals I took in inns and private cottages were far from sumptuous, but as I drew nearer to the Dutch frontier the amount and variety

of the food to be obtained changed in an ascending scale, until at Antwerp one could almost forget, so far as the table was concerned, that the world was at war. Let me give a few comparisons. At Roubaix, in France, at the time when I left in the first week of this year, my daily diet was as follows: Breakfastcoffee, bread and butter (butter was a luxury beyond the reach of the working people, who had to be content with lard); midday meal-vegetable soup, bread, boiled rice, and at rare intervals an egg or a tiny piece of fresh meat; supperboiled rice and bread. Just over the border, in Belgium, the food conditions were a little better. The ticket system prevailed, and the villagers were dependent on the depots of the American Relief Commission, supplemented by local produce.

A little further, and one passed the line of demarkation between the étape -the part of Belgium which is governed by General von Denk, formerly commanding the troops at Valenciennes-and the gouvernement général, under the command of General von Bissing.

Here a distinct change was noticeable. My first meal in this area included fillet of beef, the first fresh meat I had tasted for weeks. Tickets were still needed to buy bread and other things supplied by the Relief Commission, but other foodstuffs could be bought without restriction.

At Brussels the food supply seems to be nearly normal. My Sunday dinner there consisted of excellent soup, a generous helping of roast leg of mutton, potatoes, haricot beans, white bread, cheese, and jam, and wine or beer, as preferred; while for supper I had cold meat, fried potatoes, and bread.

At Antwerp, with two French friends who accompanied me on my journey through Belgium, I walked into a middleclass café at midday. I ordered a steak with fried potatoes and my friends ordered pork chops. Without any question about tickets we were served. We added bread, cheese, and butter to complete the meal and washed it down with draft light beer. Later in the day we took supper in the same café-an egg omelette, fried potatoes, bread, cheese, and butter.