The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-08-19
AMERICANS TELL OF PERILS CONQUERED
 IN LEAVING EUROPE

New York, Aug. 19.-F4rst hand talks of the fight at Ldege and grim nara tive of the aeamy side of the war spir- it sweeping Europe came into port to- day on the lips of American refugees from thes continent aboard the Red Star liner Finland. Many of the Americans aboard were without mon ey and baggage; some had been held as spies, others had made their way on foot from the interior of Belgium to Antwerp amid scenes and dangers of warfare and nearly all had stories of hardships encountered in their flight.
 With a Dutch pilot aboard, Captain Barman steered his ship through a little used channel of the harbor of Antwerp to the North Sea when he found the horizon smudged with the smoke of British batt1eships., In his perilous passage through the mine strewn waters there were no buoys to guide him. His way lay over the shall lows. and he had to Tighten the ship of all her water ballast to make thu course without scraping the bottom. Time after time the ship was stopped byNwar vessels, although she flew the American flag.
 James A. Patten of chicago and Mrs. Patten, passengers, said they were in Carlsbad when war was dp- clared between Germany and Russia They left for Nuremberg in an auto mobile and arriving there were taken to the guard house and rigidly cross questioned before they were allowed to continue. They boarded crowded train for Ostend but go no fuI1tre than Cologne
 There they found themselves in a vortex of mobiliziug troops and marching citizens which chpked the 7a1e
 aged to get aboard another train for the border but got no further than the little town of Herbsthal on the fron- tier. which they reached at 10 o'clock at night in a downpour Of rain. We managed to make our way into a little cafe MT. Patten said land there we got one slice of bread apiece, our first meal that day. Next day ] hired a horse and cart to take us over the Belgian frontier to Verviers. Three bother Americans were with us.
 On the road we passed the most pitiful procession of German refugees fleeing from Belgium. Some were in vehicles, but the majority were trudg- ing in the dust. pushing or pulling their baggage carts.
 From Vervfers we proceeded by another car towards Lege. We had
 not progressed three miles when we came upon a party of Belgian engin-
 
 had great piles of dynamite stacked there ready to plant in the ditches they were digging across the roadway They advised us we had better go te Liege by another road; we hastened te do so.
 Americans were halted at that very spot by a skirmish between the Bel gians and Uh1anE. They were forced to lie in a ditch while the Belgians l fired over them
 Next day 5000 Germans were killed by the mines we had seen the engin- eers planting.
 we arrived at Idege at o'clock | on the afternoon Of August and managed to get a train for Brussels ! two hours later. But V did not leave
 before we heard the thunder of the forts cannon repulsing the first on l ,sIaught of the Germans The towr was cold with fear
 l Other passengers on board the Fin land said that 1dr. Patton had bough' steamship tickets for nine stranded ] Americans B. R. Weeks Jr.. and hi; sister, Miss A. L. Weeks of Spokane I Wash, told of the situation at Brus 1 sels on Aug. after the German l troops had invaded Belgium l They saw a squad of soldiers pur, I suing solitary man in uniform ovel | the housetops firing at him as they ran. One Of the shots went trues the pursued man threw up his hands ana I pitched headlonE from the top of 2
 four -story building to the street. Fl, | was German spy. the soldier, thought. A little later they saw l mob rip the clothing from a-nothe ! German suspected as a. spy and beai | him till soldiers wrested him away Next day the prisoner WAS shot as :
 spy.