TALES THAT ARE TOLD.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXV, Issue 40, 18 February 1915, Page 4

TALES THAT ARE TOLD.

One wonders sometimes whether the Germans even faintly realise what a nation of liars they are and how ludicrous some of their efforts at mendacity must appear to the world at large. For their own sakes let us hope there are some good people in the country who are being honestly deceived by the official tarradiddle. A few samples are given below of the port of thing served out. A German prisoner who has spent many years in London, and who had been one of the guards at a concentration camp for British, French, Belgian and Russian prisoners, told his captors that a bi-weekly bulletin was issued to the prisoners at the price of five centimes, the proceeds being supposed to go to the German Red Cross Fund. It is printed in four languages and has recorded the fall of Paris, the "Zeppeling" of London, as well as the sudden death of the Czar of Russia on hearing of "the great German victory in Poland." After the first few issues the circulation sank to zero. One of the cartoons in this marvellous journalistic effort depicts King George, in company with King Albert, sitting on a form which purports to be in a cellar beneath Buckingham Palace, looking apprehensively up into the face, of a huge Prussian guardsman, Avho, with sword drawn, is directing a terror-stricken servant in knee breeches and white stockings to place a large bowl labelled "gruel" on the floor beside the two unfortunate monarchs. A map of Europe hangs on the wall, and the words "Great Germany and Ireland" are scrawled across the British Jsles. Another cartoon depicts the Crown Prince riding out of a gateway in Whitehall, the mounted sentries on cither side being German Imperial Guards, while in the background is to be seen a body of men, supposed to be British Life Guards, being fitted out with German uniforms and "knocked into shape" by a German drill instructor. The same prisoner who narrated these marvels admitted that up to a short time ago he, along with the majority of the German soldiers, had believed these things to be true, but owing to a lucky—or unlucky, as the case may be —capture of some recent English newspapers, a tiny seed of doubt was sown among the Kaiser's helmeted hordes