The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1918-01-24
Connecticut Man Arrives Home
After Escape Into Sweden
on Fertilizer Boat.
WAS HELD IN Three PRISONS
Lost 80 Pounds in Seven Months Be.
fore Aid came-Guards Worse on
Than Prisoners and Glad to Get
Scraps from Food the
Y. M. c. A. Sent.


New York.-What Is q German prls-
on camp like, from the prisoners view
point?
What sort or rood, treatment, COM
forts (lf any do the men receive who
are cnptured by the Germans?
How do the captlves stand German
prison condltionsi
Americans are more than ever vi
tally Interested in these questions,
since somo Of General PershIng's sol
dlers were made prisoners few days
ago In o french raid In France.
Throi'gh the narrative Of an Amer
lean ddventurer who less than q
month ago escaped from n German
prison and who had had experience
with two other confinement camps,
the New York World IS able to give
answers to the questions.
Captured by Moewe.
The narrator Is Willet c. Smith Of
South Norwalk, Conn, who reached
this country on November from Swe-
den, to which land he escaped from
Lubbock, Germany, by concealing him
self in the hold of vessel and ex-
listing six days without food or wa
ter.
Smith had been prisoner, first
aboard the German raider Moewe, then
in camp ne Duelmen, then Mt Branden-
burg and finally ut Lubbock, for seven
months and one day. He fled ON OIto-
Der II.
Summed up, his testimony Is this: :
There Is no particular brutality, no
clubbing with guns or stabbing with
bayonets as long as prisoners remain
orderly. But the food Is insufficient
he fell away from 210 to 1870 pounds
and long continued subsistence upon
German prison fare alone has most
grlevOus effects upon the health.
Only the Red Cross and Y. NJ. c. A.
supplies are keeping the prisoners
alive at some confinement places.
Brpndenburg, where about 10000
prisoners of allied nations were kept,
was the worst camp Smith encounter
ed This is in Prussia, not far from
Berlin. Duelmen, In Westphalia. was
bad enough, although the treatment
was better. At Lubbock, which Is not
camp but port where prisoners
are worked on the waterfront, condl-
tiOns were not bad Mt all.
Guards Worse Of.
The German soldiers guarding the
prisoners were far worse of there than
the captlves, Smith declares. Re-
lief organizations keep the prisoners
supplied with enough food and clothes
TO get along with, and the mlddle-aged
guards, half starving and in patches,
beg supplies from their captive enc
mics.
"They're sick and disgusted with
the war, these fellows at Lubbock"
Smith says. "They would often say:
Look Mt us, without enough TO eat
or wearl The kaiser's no earthly
good He's crazy. Germanys starv-
Ing and licked and yet he keeps on
fightingv
Smith, railroad brakeman by
trade and "boomer" by inclination,
sailed from Newport News on January
% for Liverpool as foreman Of "a
American horse-wranglers. When his
ship, the Brltlsh-owned steamer Es-
meralda, was on her return voyage In
March she was captured, robbed and
sunk by the raider Moewe, and her
crew added to the prisoners Of that ad-
venturous craft who numbered ut the
end of the Moewe's raidlng voyage
above 600
How the prisoners were shut be- !