UNITED STATES.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 August 1918, Page 5

UNITED STATES.

| FIENDISH CRUELTY. TO AMERICAN PRISONERS. Received Aug. IS, 5.5 p.m. New York, Aug. IS. The World's correspondent at Gldenzaal, on the Dai .".i-German frontier, interviewed Sergeant Schwartz Leigh, who deserted from the 74th Pomeranian Regiment after serving as a guard at prison camps- He says the Germans, acting on headquarters' authority, are outdoing their own record of cruelty towards the American prisoners. They have adopted the policy: "The fewer the Americans who return home the better for us," applying the so-called "sharp regime" and "preventive punishment," whereby Americans are punished before committing offences and sent to the Kuestrin reprisal camp, where, they are compelled to work 18 to 20 hours daily. The guard's have been instructed to shoot if prisoners sit down, and erusli their skulls with bayonets if they collapse. The food consists of dirty thin so») and bread- The latter is missing thrice weekly, and those making complaints are punished by being made to stand motionless in the sun for three daysAmericans are compelled to fill fish ponds, using only a water glass. One month's solitary confinement is given for failure *to fill the pond. Americana are conveyed in chains to Russia and exhibited while a lecturer explains that the Germans are. victorious. On one occasion ftn American broke his "handcuff? and assaulted the lecturer. The prisoner was shot. Negroes are especially cruelly treated, being flogged mercilessly for the slightest offence. GermanAmerican prisoners are treated kindly, for the purpose of trying to organise a brigade to fight for Germany, but the German-Americans refuse to eat the extra bread rations when other American prisoners are not supplied. At the railway stations the nolice invite the populace to insult and spit on Me Americans, saying: "The waT prolon£*ers are here."—Aus. N.Z. Press sociation-I.W.W-'S FOUND GUILTY. Received Aug. ID, 8.45 p.m. New York, Aug. 18. At Chicago. 100 members of the Workers of the World were found guilty of obstructing the nation's war activities and violating the Espionage Act. The trial ha s lasted four months, the number of defendants being the largest in the -history of American jurisprudence. William D. Haywood was among the defendants—Press Assoc.