STUDIED GERMAN CRUELTY.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 May 1916, Page 8

STUDIED GERMAN CRUELTY.

TO PRISONERS OF WAR An Australian who was for a time a prisoner at Ruhleben, Mr. A. D. McLaren, writes as follows of German cruelties to prisoners:—"During my first week in Ruhleben I interviewed fifty-one individuals who had been interned in other camps in Germany. Some of the details they gave me of their treatment brought to light the inherent nature of Deutschtuni. The German instinct, where the infliction of pain on an enemy is concerned, is something positive and characteristic. U is not the mere taking reprisals, it is not the absence of certain other instincts, but rather a studied cruelty, an active, sometimes refined, delight in torturing-. There are recitals that bear a burning conviction on their face, that jut out from the crop of atrocities and rumors of atrocities which strife between nation and nation always breeds. I select a witness who had been interned at Scnnelager, Minister, and.Celle. At one of these camps for several cold nights the prisoners had no shelter at all, and either slept on the ground or wandered about till morning. At another a common form of punishment was to tie the prisoners by the arms and feet to trees, hut so that the feet did not rest on the ground. 'Have you ever undergone the punkshmcnl,?' I asked. 'Oh, yes; I have the marks of the cord on my arms yet.' "'Just show them to me.' 'That's very easy. Ttiere.' 'What wore the commonest offences for which this punishment was inflicted?' 'Lying on the bed at any time Between 0 a.m. and 0 p.m., and smoking in prohibited places,' Frequently the unfortunate sufferers! were in a slate of collapse for hours after they were 'cut down,' sometimes thoy fainted. Nor must the responsibility for this be charged to a few Ignorant soldiers. The members of a deputation that protested to the officers were sentenced to three days' solitary confinement for insubordination. At one camp a Bolgian just brought In in a famishing condition rushed for the bread-cart, which, as H happened, was at the moment being dragged by some prisoners to th« kitchen. My informant saw this Belgian tfat ini <» H»f sfiei,"