The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-04-15


 Germany is a. nice country to be out of. This assertion contains the uuintessence of truth, for I have been there, and it emerges from the bitter depths of personal and painful know ledge.
 Germany, I repeat, is a nice country to be out of-So nice that any 1no1- yidnal endowed with hard and un- forgiving disposition could not do pet ter than consign his enemies to the Fatherland in preference to a reg1on which, after all, may possess noun ing more than an imaginary existence
 As an unwilling guest of His I'm neria1 Majesty Wilhelm H., of the House of Hohenzollern, and or the fierce and warlike mustachios, en- dured many things of a nature cal culated to create serious eVaporAtlon in the fountain of gratitude. In otner word. I feel so unthankful for the entertainment with which 1 was pro vided on the eastern banks or the Rhine-where veritable slaves III Their millions toll night and day-that might forget myself and dare to ruffle the aforesaid Wilhelm's sense of his Divine kingship were l to meet him in some lonely spot 1ar IroIn the madding crowd"
 Having thus expressed py sentl- ments towards the head of the Ger nanic Eupire-upon whose shoulders T Iay the main responsibility for the war and my own sufferings- think if advisable, even at this early stage of nv story. to draw a pen-picture of recent economic conditions Ill the land of the Gentle Hun.
 Strikes Due to Lack of Food seWhat are the real conditions, and what are the people thinking over III Germany?'
 These are questions I have ire ouentIy been asked since returning home, and before relating my adVen- t,ires as a prisoner of war in the lend of the Hun I think it well to answer them.
 From the summer of 1915 until the close of 1917, when I made my escape the German nation was graduatS slipping down the hill of food snort age into the valley of starvation. And YOU can take it from me thai bv this time the German nation has reached mighty near the bottom o1 the slope. The full force of the Br1' fish blockade was in evidence wher left. and the result has been that the great bulk of the civilian popula- +ion neyer come in contact with 2 square meal s
 In my opinion, the strikes in the Fatherland we have been hearing SC l xETith iT0 the last few months are more the result of lacl of food for the masses than any strong desire for a just and honorable peace.
 I must admit that the German au thorities display an amazing amour of ingenuity in feeding the fires O: hope. Seldom day elapses but th' newspapers announce that, conse ouent upon improved organization ol for some other equally plausible req son. more and better rations vii shortly be forthcoming. Nor do the! forget to reiterate stories to the ef feet that, while there is shortag' in the Fatherland, the conditions II the British Isles are infinitely worse
 'It is true that we sometimes gt hungry" wrote one German journal ist. "but our sufferings are paltr! compared with those of the hatet English, Our U-boats form a ring O iron around Britain, and the popuia ton is starving. The members of tn working classes are dying in thei thousands for lack of food. Let thos Germans who are inclined to grum ble recall to mind a little those facts We have only to endure little long CT, and complete victory shall b. ours"
 The Huns swallow all such yarn with avidity.
 On the other hand the military of ficers connected with the various pris on camps know a little better. The, see the thousands of parcels whicl arrive from the homeland for the Bri fish prisoners of war, and I hay heard them laughing over the news paper announcements about food con ditions on the other side of the Nortl Sea.
 During the latter part of the yea 1917 it was almost impossible to ob tain meat of any kind, and potatoe were equally scarce.
 True, the citizens were fully pro vided with a plethora of ration card:
 entitling them to purchase quantitie or various kinds of food-stuffs, bu the trouble was that the shopkeeper
 had not the goods to sell. A great deal has been written an = published about food substitutes in ) vented by the Germans, and not ] few persons seem to labor under tn l impression that such things adequate
 ly fulfil the functions of the real al l ticles. In this connection I woul state that the vast majority of tn s substitutes have done more harm tha good, and the opinions espresso 7 anent them by their victims are A unprintable character.