The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-09-03
GERMAN LIFE IN WAR TIMES. ITS HARDSHIPS AND HORRORS
 AS SEEN BY LOCAL TEACHER
Story Of William E. Davenport, Head Of German Dept, At Bridgeport High School Graphically Tells Of Troubles Encountered By Refu= gees Abroad

. usually a four. and one half Tour.jour- ney, but one which took us two and a half days to complete. At Ober- hausen, a. short distance without Cologne. we were held five hours. At WeseI, which we reached at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we learned that the next train departed at 11:8O that night
 .'wesel is near the border line and the activity there was very noticeable. Our party was seated in one of those little out4of-door restaurants so com mon in Germany when a party of German officers took the table in back of us We had to be very careful not to speak English. but to carry on our conversation dn German, as foreign tongue was sure to cause af1 enlbar- rassing situation. At the table next to us two other officers were seated. I These whipped out their large swords how skiIlful1y they could stick a man
 through with them. Their conversa-
 ton. which was apparently for our
 benefit probably was not carried on
 to inspire fear, but in our nervous ap-e prehension, 1t hardly gave us great deal of confidence.
 we reached Elton, our last stop before crossing the GEo1land border, at 1.3O the next morning Two armed \ soldiers escorted us through the crooked streets of the small German
 village, waking up the inhabitants to secure lodging for US The women qf 1.-the party were accommodated at an ] old boarding school while my conn pan8on and myself were finally lodged | fin an inn in a, bed so marrow that one bhasd to lay facing the head and the l other t1e foot. I t-The next morning. when we were kready to leave E7ton, my young com E I and held because he had an ener- I gency passport. issued to him by an l American consul, which the officers. could not read as it was made out ir l English, and which they failed to rec ogndEe.
 but as my passport was a regular one, | in the form, at least, with which the II officers were farnili ar, had little trou- 3Fb1e I was asked the usual questions: 1 when did you come to s9erInaSayE z 1 what are you doing here2' Where are you going? Why are you solns l by way of Holland 2 and Are you T flbringfng anything with you 2?
 q T handed them bunch of letters I which was carrying out of Germany for friends who were detained there to be mailed beyond the bordernne, me ' lietters had been left open for such \ occasions and caused no trouble was detained perhaps a couple of hours
 but we all managed to get out before the train started.
 'sAfter crossing the Dutch frontaer'
 our progress was more rapid and less trying. The soldiers would come to the car window, and call All Anaer1- cans in this car?'' and would go on z when satisfied that everything was all lrtght-
 precautions were used regarding the
 bridges and every car window had to be closed before the train could
 cross-
 sHolland seemed peaceful until we
 reached Rotterdam where the excite lment was very great Crowds sur rounded the Newspaper offices and the igeneraI feeling seemed to be that Hol- land might enter the war at any mo- ment
 q had purchased my return ticket . on the rotterdam in Bridgeport, before
 I went abroad. and so felt reasonabiy
 secure The Rotterdam was not to i, sail for a week. however, and when l
 went to the steamship office to regis I ter I was advised to get out of Holland . las soon as possible, as, with affairs as they then stood, Holland would . probably declare war at any moment and my vessel might never sail ] : finally managed to secure steerags
 passage on the Ryndazn.
 stT'he vessel sailed at 1:S0 Saturda ay , morning, but even with our departure from the shores of the strife shaker continent, our nervousness did not , abate as we knew that the North sSes
 had been mined and that at any mo rnent we might strike one of those wal 2 terroIs of the sea.
 ~At il o'clock that, morning, while . steaming through the English Chan. Incl, an English man-of-WaT- stopped
 Jus hailing our captain with tnre' \ principal questions, Where do- yoI ' come from?'' tsWhere are you going T : and What have you on board ?'' [ ssWe were ordered to turn about ant Y report at Goodwin Sands, near Dover r The examination delayed US about ' as an English pilott, who knew the To 2 cation of the mines, guided us- w V were ordered to fly certain flags t
 show the other English war ships tha Y we had been examined.
 During our trip through the chan .s neI we had to take down our wireless 2 mechanism so that we could neithe . pick up nor send out any 5nforrna U U tfon about the war or the situatioi II of the ships around those parts n ''As we steamed out an awful bu o beautiful sight met our eyes, an n n proved, also, how completely the allie = have bottled up the North Sea As our left were the French warships s while to our right were the gunboat 7s and torpedo boats, defending Eng - - lands shore. At night, as we wer ls passing Plymouth, huge search1ight De played over the channel, lighting U W every object brighter than day. ss When we were a couple of day 70 out I tried to arrange with the hea ig steward for better accommodations an SC he told me that he really did moi thin le that there was any use ir, my chang
 ing as they expected at any nninut 't, to get a wireless for the vessel to g n- back to Holland. This fear of havin If to return continued until we were to g, far out to do so.
 ps ''Conditions on board ship were a, O. most indescribable. The steerag pr was packed with professors. million at aires and other influential people an
 while we had been promised secon