The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1917-08-10

DIP these hours. passing through
places SO devastated that till recently
the French Imagination could not even
conceive, how can one say that any
thing remains of our beautiful prov
inces from which the master has just
relaxed his hold!
II How they must have worked, those
gorihas, toiling with an unwearying
and amazing genius for evil to have
succeeded so quickly in creating such
havoc, that, as you pass further on,
spreads out everywhere. This Is
great section of our country that has
ceased to exist. How one longs to es-
cape from this nightmare! Every
minute at every turn of the road you
hope and say to yourself: This must
be the end But it is not the end.
Ruins succeed ruins. Cities, bridges
over rivers. villages and humble, iso-
lated farms, all are destroyed, torn
down and smashed to pieces. The
sgoriliasft eT1oiind Itirne to destroy
-everyShin5fs fesoQ. swen sri:
:. To digress a little, it. will be suffi-
Client to fathom the soul of Germany
to glance at their history. Before the
war that has revealed so much that
sCtIlDOb Bc uOAtCO, MANY 6OO@
among us had heard much of Ger
man industries" those hundreds of es-
Establishments whose worthless trash
has for some years flooded the world.
Bat thefa is an industry even more
German, more thoroughly national:
espionage, plumber rape and slaughter.
Read their authors, their great W
men. On each page there Is an apollo
gy for this industry, Look into their
history since the beginning of our era;
It is especially by this industry that
they have lived.
Some months before the actual in
vasion, SO carefully and SO fiendishly
prepared. the well-known Won Bern
hard1, at the instigation of the Kaiser.
undertook to plead extenuating cir
cunstances in advance for the pre-
meditated crimes of his master. 1t
is a question of humanity" he dared
to write, to make war }atrocious that
it may end more quickly" And 1t Is
said there are people even among US
who consider this seriously and do
this hireling the honor Of discussing
1t.
Shortly after this, the Monster of
Berlin, believing the hour propitious,
6pened the cages of his menagerie and
There went out over noble Belgium,
as on our dear France, the most 'fero-
q scious beasts ever known. Meanwhile,
-stupor, the Neutrals did not stir, and
more deadly stupor-they were even
found, because of lies and money, they
were even found to be Germanophtlesl
But today, following the course OF
their brilliant retreat the horror
REACHES its height. Now is the real
rnnasking of Germany, daring at last
to bare to the world the face of wild
animal Since Atilla, Europe has not
imagined such morals: The civil popu-
Iation carried away into slavery, the
destruction. the robbery, the slaughter.
and even the Violation of the graves OF
our soldiers, officially and thoroughly
carried on by order of the. chiefs
And sbesides, though they may deny
it, have they not themselves described
the details in their own papers, de-
lighted to praise the care that their
troops had taken, by orders, to leave
behind them only q desert when evac-
uating our already martyred cities
And they have had the naiveness to
add also that certain of their soldiers
evidently humble and susceptible to
pity rebel1ed against this low work
make strong speeches to force them
(Sic.)
Must our civilization raise its tenn
pies ON smountains of corpses. or
oceans of tears. on the groans of the
dying? Yes!"-(Field Marshal vor
zHaeseler.)
Now, although the springtime, in
sensfble or ironical, has come again
with her green garments. with the
Songs of birdx7uothing8issga gay in these
fresh ruins which SO to speak, still
bleed. On the contrary. the horror OF
the German acts is more revolving
And 1 believe that this country from
which they have just driven the Bar
sbarians, but where the Inhabitants
have not yet returned and where the
distant roar of the cannon mingles
only with the distracted trills of night
ingales is more desolate than in win
ter U.s. 7.i4, 81 sszS.
way SKY, calm and sweet, of the
color of H& aWrtle adove; has spread
above me without cloud through my
long journey today 1t made more
brilliant the green of the new leave:
and the endless carpet of grass 1t il
too thick, this grass. covering rubbish
and sinister piles. Its growth is more
1uxuriant than would be caused by the
soil of these plains which are deepl,
pluoghed in ridges and trenches sowI
all around with bullets and great can
non balls, with here and there par
of shell of marmite.
From time to time we come upor
Villages which have lost all semblanct
or form, the houses and the church
have fallen one on top of the othel
5ike house of cards against which the
wind has blown. In the woods, also
only the skeletons of trees are to b.
seen, twisted and broken, where some
branches. left by chance, have tried
to leaf out and put themselves in holi.
day costume as in calm springs o.
yore. The nearer one gets to the re
gfon that the Barbarians still hold the
greater the horror and the louder the
cannon, yet the birds still sing.
One of the strangest. things on thi
French plain now turned into a des
ert are the enormous webs of barbet
wire which wind around everything
These wires that cannot be untangled
towering at beast ten metres, bristl'
with points, like the pile on velvet
They cross each other, interwinding
Tor kilometres, till lost to sgiht amids
che thick grass, and show the grea
labor of legions OF nu,n=-. =.,z<.ers.
IT. ~.