The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-02-14

1 puDllSneQ plan TOT the ueSLfuC of the war. Few will have fol den rush through Belgium; thu and the northern plains; the q the victorious Uhlans looked French capital. The Kaiser hi amour, stood upon a hilltop al world.
 Thousands of millions of indemnity were to be paid. German goods were to be dumped into all the conquered countries free of all charge. Ships were to be handed over, ports and territories seized; and if the French did not consent to this abject peace dictated from their own Elysee in Paris, what then? Quarter by quarter the city must be burned down. Meth odicaIly torch and fire-can in hand the Germans would initiate the Pe- troleurs of the year 1871. They would sprinkle the houses not in blood, but in kerosene And as the city famed street by street the Kaiser would have asked triumphantly-"Is this enough?"
 French Capital in Ashes
 Paris, he said, should lie in ashes if the French refused him. Their gal lantry and that of our own splendid fellows alone saved it, as we know. And it is the knowledge of these things which has made Brussels ner- vous. Here is a people living in ut ter subjection. There is a great si- fence in the city, and people go fur lively as though afraid of the shad- ows. Every cafe harbors it's spies You cannot sit at dinner with the sure knowledge that the man who waits upon you is not a German agent. All strangers who come to your house are justly suspected.
 The fellow who cleans your win dows will listen to your conversation and report it to the military police The man next you in the omnibus will read the letter which you are foolish enough to be reading yourself and possibly get you shot because ot it. Shall we wonder that this city speculates upon what would befall il if the Germans were compelled tc go out. Imagine the rage, the uncon- trollable fury of this horde of bill , stickers suddenly humiliated before 8 triumphant populace. Would they moi destroy and burn, as they threatened to do in Paris? Would they leave one stone standing upon another?
 It is inconceivable that such things should be believed of civilized peo- ple but such is the truth I have had a Belgian tell me in all seriousness that the magnificent Cathedral, that Gothic fabric of unparalleled beauty is mined in all it's vaults, and will gc up in fragments the day the German: , leave; the Hotel de Vile of matchles! 7 perfection is to be shattered to atoms Not only is this the case, but ever! , main boulevard in Brussels is under mined with view to it's destruction f Let the word pass that the British and the French are coming in, anC f Brussels will go up in the flames, ant the city be known no more.
 I I confess that I can hardly believ this atrocity possible; nor can I ina zine a commercial nation which i Q threatened with the presentation of lengthy bill thus adding incontinentl . to its total. But these are the fears and, if we listen to German threats such a performance would be a mer piece of play compared with tha they contemplate elsewhere.
 7 Never was so desolate a land see as that which has been made of Nor thern France and Flanders. Upon tn q Somme and before Messines the Ger - mans turned peaceful, smiling coun e try into a wilderness which defies a = description. Here are villages whic = are not even the shells of houses. ; Il blur of powdered brick dust upon tn Il black horizon alone marks thei - scene. Once they were the ornament t of France-red-roofed, with their ol Gothic churches, lying amid a net work of white roads, which poplar or acacias, or even apple trees, bo1 dered. Now you shall see no road save those which our engineers hay made. EverS tree that could bea fruit, every trunk that could bar tn way to cannot or to soldiers, has bee ruthlessly cut down. The wells, W are told, have been often poisone by creosote added to the corpses fun into them. All the stores that couI not be carried away were burned; an the women, violated often and th subject of unspeakable outrage Hunnish hands, were driven off : sheep to terrors even more unnamt able. Only the very old and the 1T fants crept forth from the cellars this desolation. Sometimes even tt infant has been crucified on the bar doors, or the eldest son drenche with paraffin and lighted to make
 human torch for the fiendish invade
 Booby Traps
 These are notorious things. We ma ask what further could the German have done, and it is difficult to sa
 There were never such booby traps : they have set for the unsuspecting
 helmet thrown on the road ocean bombsheIl when you touched it.
 pencil-case upon the chimney ble
 off the fingers of the man who trie
 to write with it. You turned tF fingers of a clock and were hurled il
 to space. A piano blew up when yo
 touched the keys. The nail upc
 which you went to hang your hat
 the ruined cottage fired mine at al - contact, and half street was sha
 tered Even the pictures upon tl
 walls were traps. and the soap vii