Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1916-07-07
PRISONERS OF war
In Former Times They Were Held
as Virtual Slaves.
HAD TO EARN THEIR LIBERTY.

The prisoner of war in our day is the
subject of an elaborate code Oh rules.
drawn I'D at meetings of The Hague
peace conference. No property must
he taken from him except arms and
military equipment. He u not De
kept in close confinement II that can
he avoided. and II possible his parole
must be accepted. He may be set to
any work for which he is reasonably
fitted-although officers are not pound
to workout he must be allowed q
similar standard of life and credited
with a similar scale Of pay to that
which obtains among the sold1er-artir-
icers of the c%onquering nation.
When set freesthe cost of his mainte-
nance will be deducted and he Will re-
ceiye the balance In cash. He may be
shot when trying to escape, put II
caught alive he must not be punished
except by curtailment of his liberty
These are q few Of the many rules by
which all civilized nations are now
bound In regard to their prisoners or
war.
Among savage men the destiny OF q
prisoner was to be eaten, massacred In
cold blood or tortured for sport, until It
dawned one day upon some primitive
political economist that a live captive
had labor value, and sc arose h inst1-
tuition of slavery. Among free peoples
like the Teutons, war prisoners were
the only slaves allowed, and they
might in time earn their
This idea of Communication became the
custom Of medieval Europe, applied
as prize money" to ships and ran
som" to individuals. All officers
could claim the right to offer a reason
able ransom, which went into the
pocket of the captor. Sometimes off,
GERS would ransom a whole troop OF
their men.
Kings or great captains were ran
somed by their nations. Richard the
Lion Heart had a woeful time OF it
until England ransomed him from ne
Emperor Henry. King John of France,
taken at Poitiers by the Black Prince,
was held by England to ransom nth
Lie LUKE VI auJOu SdmC 40 AOothSO
while John went to raise the neces-
sary cash. King David of Scotland
captured by Queen Eleanor, never per-
suaded the thrifty Scots to pay the
whole of his ransom and became a de-
pendent as q consequence.
In Froissart's engaging chronicles
you may read how bands of mercenary
troops quarreled with gallant and Inn
petuous commanders, whose only OBJ
ject was the destruction Of the enemy.
The mercenaries were out to take pris-
oners and trade In the ransoms. This
traffic gave rise to infinite abuses, In
Guiding torture and all manner of dis
honesty. Sir John Falstaff-Shake-
speare's Falstaff-was notorious for
an extensive and INSCRIPTIONS traffic
in Yet 1t was not until dur
ing the eighteenth century wars that
an agreement to end the custom was,
come to between the European COM
manders. Even then 1t fingered on In.
practice until the eve of the Napoleonic
wars, when 1t was swept away for the
newer idea of exchange of prisoners,
rank for rank.
One great change brought about by
the new system was that the prisoners
became a state care and responsibility.
Whether this change made for greater
humaneness of treatment depended In
part upon the c~onquering nation, but
even mor upon the individual COVER
nor or jailer. This may be seen in he
varying accounts we have Of the con
ditions of prisoners of wal In England
during the long struggle with Napoleon.
Lincolnshire's fens make good cen
tiers for a military compound. George
Borrow, in "Lavengro,'' has given a
terrible picture of the conditions at
Norman's Cross prison, in the fen dis
trict. "Rations of carrion meat" he
writes, land bread from which l have
seen the very hounds occasionally turn
away were unworthy entertainment
even for the most ruffian enemy, when
helpless and captive"
In these prisons the inmates made
various articles of commercial utility,
such as straw plat, which were
bought of them by dealers for a miser-
able sum, the proceeds procuring them
q few trifing comforts and the luxury
OF tobacco, or affording the brides nec-
essary for the smuggling out of letters.
More tolerable was the fate of those
settled ON parole in such towns as
chesterfield, where they endured ac-
Etual confinement under guard only at
might, being free within certain bounds
during the day. In many cases, as time
went by, prisoners who had won the
~Fconfdence of their guards became
virtually free in all respects, starting
workshops as cabinetmakers, ETC., or
teaching drawing, music or French to
the children of the well to do. Their
geniadty and polteness soon made
them very popular with the blunt and
serious Derbyshire folk, and quite a