Norwich bulletin., 1918-07-20

to Paris, living in the Quartier Latin,
 and there l worked toward a certain method thanks very largely to the
 teaching of M. Bergson. l was one Of a group, a very considerable group,
 who expected a revolution in life
 To make this revolution as catholic
 as possible we decided to get French
 students to visit Germany and German
 students to visit France. To this end
 I journeyed to Germany in June 1914.
 Tn August I was arrested as a French
 spy. but was rescued, after a very
 searching examination, by the people with whom I had lodged. Soon after this the order came that all English people were to go to Baden. 1 had no passport and in consequence was sub iected to no little annoyance. l was taken out of the train, spoken to with much rudeness, and bumped about with no ceremony. Is Baden Baden we enjoyed a great measure of lib- erty The head of police was polite and trusted us to behave with proprie- ty. For three months it was like. this and not unpleasant. But on Novem- Der we were all arrested marched to the police station and informed that we must go to prison until we were moved to an interment camp near Ser | lin. We were two days in prison:
 l Then we set out for Berlin. This was a railway journey of over thirty 1 hours, and except for some soup in 1 Baden we were given neither food nor water. It was obviously an order. l We were refused water. and food was l procurable at the stations; but we
 were allowed nothing. When we reached Berlin we were thrown into l so4 l difficult to imprison an Englishinan. His sense of liberty triumphs over the rigor of brutality. The warders may shout till they grow purple of face but they cannot subdue an english mans spirit In this dreadful prison for example the beds were in cages and an iron bar was let down at night locking us all in; well, we told the 1 warders that we simply would not stand this, and the bar was no longer let down at night Then the beds were horribly infested with bugs
 We protested so decisively that the authorities provided us with an in secticide, and for two days 70 Britons
 in that prison were engaged in clean ing their beds.
 "The German official is a very sim
 pie character He is accustomed
 either to shout or to be shouted at He is either a bully or subservient tt
 bullying. He thinks he has only tC
 shout to be obeyed, only to frown tt
 be feared. The warders in this prisor
 were afraid of their prisoners. These criminals did not strike me as yer!
 bad people, certainly not worse thar ] the Germans themselves, but tn!
 warders shouted at them and bulliet them because they were afraid thes, poor devils might show fight. I an
 quite certain of this: the German re garded from a creative, a moral, anC | a spiritual point of view, is-nothing He is simply nothing. I mean he con tributes nothing new to the life 0 ! , the human race. Germany is not
 nation, it is a conspiracy. The Ger
 mans have no vital sense of persona l or spiritual freedom They are al } merged together in mass material [ ism. The difference between the Brit
 on and the German could be seen mos } tell you presently. but it could be seer even in this convict prison.
 After 1s days we were sent t 2 Spandau by train, and from there dragging our things with us, " ! march to Ruhleben Camp. Now tn 2 camp seemed to me like a collier, } district when there is a strike or | It was 8 frightfully untidy place. witt
 no signs of order or industry: yor
 saw people standing about in crowds II and buildings which looked as they had been wrecked by rioters I iI One. did not like it's appearance.
 l ITO give you some idea of the ac
 commodation I lived with two other ] in space exactly the size of @ bil
 Hard table, that is to say, Eft. by 6fi Three of us occupied this space wit
 our beds, our books, our clothing
 the roof over our heads being Sit. a
 it's highest, and Aft. at it's loves ! The end of this space we used as
 1 classroom. Our billiard table If
 was spent in loft over a stable e freezingly cold in winter, and so bedl = lighted that one is always in gloom f The particular barrack in which
 lived this life was called the Snob Barrack, because the people who oc = cupied it comirg from Baden and Ser lin were mainly of the public schoC :. and varsity type. Some of our fello' = prisoners in the camp were very oh h iectionable people, some, I mean, ( : German origin who had become nat t uralized for purposes one had bette = not inquire into, and who were cer f tainly opposed to the English eaus e We called them PCS, pro-Gernan
 and watched with scorn their iniser }, able efforts to curry favor with tn = military authorities. But the tru q Briton was magnificent An, if we l. to begin speaking about British chai |. acter with any freedom I should 800