The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-03-27

said:
"F'raulein. my interpreter is on sick
leave today: Will you come with me Oh
my tour of inspection?''
It was command in spite of his way
of putting it, but one that I was happy
to obey,
First we entered the Quarantine
pen, as he described it,
F'Here." he said, 1--WE keep all euF
newly arrived prisoners for a period Of
four weeks ERti1 we are certain they
have no eonta gieas disease
I dc not knew how many were there,
but certainly hundreds. as the tent COW
cred perhaps tive acres of ground. It
was separated from an adjoining one
by barbed wire fence and roadway
eight er.ten feet wide.
The head surgeon said to the men in
German that any who were i'll should
! come and speak to him, but warned
them that he had ne time to listen to
Imaginary complaints. He then had
me repeat this ia English and in
French.
A comparatively small number came
forward, and eff them only enc seemed
sufficiently i'll to need immediate at
tentien
L
scarcely believe he was cid enough to
have been accepted for service. The
moment he spoke I knew he was a
gentleman. He was SO i'll I realized
that the irialady1 must have been de-
veloping fer several days at least, and
quickly asked him why he had SO
neglected himself.
He looked up at me rather shyly and
said:
81 would not have come today if you
hadn't been here. The interpreter
browbeats fellow so. I'd rather have
nothing to do with them"
He was sent at once to the hospital.
My idea concerning him proved cor
rect. He was younger son of one Of
the best known Irish families, who, not
being able to go as an officer, had, as
have so many Englishmen of birth,
gone as private.
The surgeon rapidly passed on to the
buildings. There were perhaps dozen
of these, low buildings of stained
boards standing on brick foundations,
each exactly ike the other. ! learned
afterWard that each was supposed to
hold 200 to 225 men. They were heated
by stoves and lighted by electricity,
and the ventilation, : noticed, was ex-
ceIlent.
The mattresses lying on the floor
were of striped ddcking, filed with
wood shavings about two feet thick.
In the center of the room were long,
narrow tables, at which the men ate,
wrote and played games.
Discipline here is maintained among
the men," the surgeon said to me, with
a certain pride, Shy officers of their
own nationality. Of course, if any
thing goes wrong we step in
I had observeds however, that bat
teries of artillery were stationed at
points of vantage here and there
around the camp and that each build
ing had lookout towers in which SEN
tries mounted guard day and night.
BY the time our tour was at an end
1t was suppertime, and I saw on all
food. I remarked to the surgeon that
the men were having vegetables as
well as bread for supper.
Eyes, today" he replied, ssbut it is
not a regular thing to have both, but
at noon they have good soup, in which
has been cooked meat, and vegetables
and black bread.
Going out we passed the store. The
ed among the articles on sale, soap,
brushes, shirts, towels, German die
tionaries and French, English and Ger
man grammars. There was no food on
the list
The surgeon called my attention TO
the price Of the German grammars and
dictionaries. They were 6 cents each.
tfYou sees'' he explained, laughing,
chow the general stair encourage the
learning of our language" and then
he added gravely, for they hope it
will lead to better understanding Of
US, and so make for great good"
I could not resist the temptation to
ask, $50 you feel that to know the
Germans is to love them?''
For a momens he did not know
whether to be angly or to laugh. Per-
haps I looked at lin little APOLOGIZE
ca1ly,. which threw che balance in favor
of the latter, for he smiled and said,
tsBut am afraid the knowledge of a
language doesn't mean knowing the
people, as many Germans know Eng
Hsh''- and he left che sentence unfin-
ished
9'And do the Engsish know German?''
I asked.
mot many he answered. "And
those who do have learned it in order
to read philosophy, literature. science
and there it ends. After ALL he con-
tinued with characteristic German an
a1ysis, my own opinion is that Ian
guage cannot express good will unless
it is already there, and if that is lack
ing the more closely two peoples come
into contact the more likely they are to
discover points of disagreement and
ultimately to quarrel
Germany undoubtedly made PAINS
taking provision f.,r every possible con-
tingency arising out of state of war.
She even held yearly maneuvers at in
dustrial establishments so that at
moments notice they might. for exam
pie, turn from the manufa cture of toys
sto the making of shrapnel. Yet vast