The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-08-10
tCopyright 1917, by the International
News Bureau)
(By Hall Caine)

MOtnerS OF Ocrmany, all the W0EkA
knows how dearly you love your chill
dren. Some of us (now your enc
nies) who, in the unbelievable days
before the war Cab, God, can it be!),
used to sleep and eat and laugh in
your German homes, as you slept and
ate and laughed in our English
homes, have memories of little do
mestic scenes in Germany which were
sufficient to prove it. Two or three
such memories come back to me now,
and not all the fiery passions that
have burnt up the sweetness of the
years between van quite blackeh the
tender grace Of them.
The first lis of a Christmas eve
spent In the house OF a beautiful
young German woman with three or
four sweet young children. Like Ib-
sens little mother, she had spent the
morning In mysterious journeys to the
village shops, in smuggling strange
looking parcels Into the house, and in
certain solitary occupations in the
Grawing-roorn. But towards the early
dusk OF the winter day the blinds
wese pulled down. the folding doors
were thrown open, and then the little
people, dressed up in white, tingling
with excitement. and holding each
as to some magic cave, with our
black coated contingent of older folk
following In the rear.
There. Ia the middle of the floor.
stood the Christmas tree, glittering
with red and blue candles all alight,
glistening with crackers, laden with
toys, and crowned with the .lwelcom-
ing face Of the Christmas man. Ana
there, too. was the young mother her
self, waiting and watching with eager
eyes for the wonder and joy in the
eyes or her children. After the first
moments OF GREATNESS awe were
over. and. "Stille Nacht, heilige
Nacht.s' had been sung, she called on
the E6verness to play something on
the piano. Then there was a romp
around the tree. the young mother
taking the hands Of her youngest on
either side, and all laughing and
sfirieking with delight. / stood in the
open doorway, Igremember, and If
there was anything more moving for
me In the fairy-like scene than the
happiness OF the children, 1t was the
searching sense Of tn emother- heart
throbbing through and through it.
The second OF the memories that
come back to me is OF the same home
or happiness a few hours later. After
various carols sung In silvery child
voices ait the back of the dining room
door. the house was. silent. and with
noisele6s Footsteps we were creeping
upstairs behind the young mother to
the darkened chamber where her gol-
den-headed treasures lay asleep.
There they were under the glinking
nightlight. looking soft and white as
milk, each in her little cot, whiaA
was banked up with dolls and oranges
and chocolate boxes in such positions
that they must be the first things
seen by the little sleeper when she
opened her eyes in the morning. This
was another and yet. more touching
scene out Of fairyland. and it had the
same sense OF mother heart throb-
bing through and through it.
And now, with a hot and quivering
heart. 7 think of other scenes in Eng
land which seem to say, rightly or
wrongly, that the German mother
who loves her own so tenderly, can
be more cruel to the children of the
English mother than the wolf to the
whelps OF the fox-dam.
One In of a murky night in the first
months of tine war. On the top floor
Of a tenement house In North Lon
don three little children Gust as
white and soft and sweet as yours
lay asleep in each others arms. A
Zeppelin came riding through the
blackness of the skies and dropped
bombs ON their humble home. All
three were killed.
In the spring OF the present year, a
laborine man who lived in; a cottage
on the edge Of a little holiday town
on our southeast coast. was smoking
his last pipe late at night before CO.
ing to bed, when a shell from Ger
man destroyer on the dark. sea out
side struck the upper story where his
wife and children lay asleep. Amid
the crash of falling tin1bers he reach
ed the foot of the broken stairway
and called up to his wife. There was
at first NO answer, and then out of
the darkness came frightened cry
from his little doughter, five years of
age. Come down, dearie," he called.
~ can't, daddie, I'm hurt" cried the
child The distracted man clambered
UP to the child, carried her to the
outer door of his house. told her to
find her way If she could, to her
grandmother's down the street, and
then returned to look for her mother
and baby brother in the bedroom
above. When he found them they
were dead.
Three weeks ago. towards noon of
a heaf emily summer day, in an infant
school in East London, a hundred
children, ranging in ages from three
years to six. were singing their last
lesson before the time came to scam
per home in childish glee to their
midday meal. when out of the sun
shine of the sky two bombs fell from
q German air-machine and killed ten
of them and wounded fifty. The
scene was frightful shambles Some
of the children were destroyed beyond
all recognition, their sweet limbs be-
ing eplashed like bloody avalanche
against the broken walls. And a mo-
ment later, their mothers coming
breathless, bare-headed, and with
wild eyes to the school door, saw the
mang1ed bodies of their babies
brought out in a stream of blood
Mothers of Germany, IL I have not
spared you the pain of these descrtp-
lions, 1t is because want you to rea-
lize for yourselves what English
mothers feel about the murder OF
their innocent children, who knew
nothing of the war and had done no
harm to anyone. Who manned the
legion OF devi1ish engines that drop
ped death on them from the sky .?
Your sons. and some of them are
mtfli 90 young that it must seem to
you only as yesterday since you nurs-