"PERFECT SWINE"

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2348, 2 January 1915, Page 10

"PERFECT SWINE"

: HOW CULTURED GERMANS ; '■ ■';■,.- ; 'BEHAVE..; ; , ;.- -A relative of an officer at the front has sent the following-' letter received by him to the'"Morning Post" for-publi-cation.-'.lt is dated October: 17:—\ "This is the most-disgusting billet we have-been in—simply filthy. These Germans are perfect swine. This/place is, or rather was, a nice farm. : Everything has been turned upside down;.all the. drawers, mostly containing, wearing apparel, - upset oh: the. floor; everything, food,-etc.,-all' spilt all over the place, and a, smell of stale drink everywhere. They'brought in straw to sleep ■on, and have upset the'food and clothes, etc., all on top of it I 'Wehave ha<t a, party of men -workincon it, and' it is now fairly• clean:. The dirty -plates, dishes,.etc., have been removed and the floors cleaned up, and now it. is fairly presentable; but it is only by smoking furiously that we can keep the'stale drink smell down. Some houses: are infinitely'worse, and are really too dißgustin'g for description. They, don t stop'at 'slaughtering'a pig mthe house and leaving the offal_ and ekm in bedrooms. They are devils. .. ' ' ._. "Since I wrote'last they have kept us in reserve, and the British Array has been doing a wheeling movement. ..Our Division,, being not far from thepivot. had .not far to. advance each day and we have not had nuich hard fighting the last two days, but. three days before that two vegimonts in the.Brigade last a good manv officers wounded. One regiment hnd fifteen hit in three days. To'-dav the -Lincoln* «rot -in with the bayonet,'and I hope killefl a lot. It was quite a pretty little , fight. Tho Germans were only fighting -a rearguard action, and had no guns, and we simply Mastered them'with shell.. They must have lost a, lot-at least I.hoPe so. A\e wore in reserve atain, and didn t come into action till afterwards."