Page 9 Advertisements Column 2

Taranaki Daily News, 23 October 1915, Page 9 (Supplement)

A pathetic instance of the extent to which the German barbarities in Belgium were carried during the earlier months of the war, was related by Major de Martin, an officer of the Belgian army, at a patriotic meeting at Jit. Albert recently. Major de Martin said that when he was in - London, before coming out to New Zealand, he was summoned to the Charing Cross Hospital, where, he was told, a Flemish boy, speaking the dialect of the south of Belgium, was unable to make himself understood. Lying in a bed at the hospital he found a lad of about fourteen years of age. Both his hands had been cut off at the wrists. Encouraged to explain for what reason he had suffered this great misfortune, the boy said that when he was out scouting he was caught by a German officer, who asked him all sorts of questions, but was unable to extract an answer. After receiving a number of kicks and blows, he was handed over to a surgeon, who, failing to gain any information, sent him to the provost marshal. He was then given into the charge of a butcher, who took him behind the lines. His hands were cut oil', and he was unmercifully thrown into a ditch, where he lay until picked up by a Bavarian officer, who took compassion on him and gave the boy assistance,