Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-02-14
CRUEL HUNS
MADE Girl.
THEIR PREY
SHOCKING STORY
English School Teacher Safe
at Homer Relates Horrible
Experience in German
Prison

4
Probably the only English girl
who has undergone penal servi-
tude by sentence of Hun court
: martial, Miss Agnes Short, a pref
ty Liverpool school teacher, re-
Gently reached home from penal
prison in Germany, clad only in
and a soldiers blanket fashioned
into substitute for coat, the
latter having been secured on
reaching the British lines in Bel
GUM.
She was a governess and teach
er of English in Brussels at the
time war broke out, and on
August 4. 1914, joined the Bel
gian Red Cross, and, being able
to pass as Belgian, escaped in
ternmsnr.
From August 4, 1916, Miss
Short wa arrested several times,
and served short sentences for no
real offense-wearing a brooch
with the Belgian colors, and the
like-ard she was insulted and
brutally treated.
ION the evening of December
So said Miss Short, 81 was ar
rested in the street and taken to
Liege to be confronted by two
boys to whom I had given false
papers to enable them to cross
the frontier. We got to Liege at
3 o'clock in the morning, and at
the police station we were in
formed that the boys had been
sent back to Brussels. I was
taken there and confronted at the
prison with the two young Bel
gians, who recognized me-, and
said it was I who gave them the
papers.
Imprisoned With Spy
81 was placed in cell and kept
for ten weeks awaiting trial. Be-
ing alone in the cell I asked for a
companion, and they sent me an
Austrian woman who spoke per-
feet Flemish, who was posing as a
Belgian, and who pretended she
was in the same predicament as
myself, that she was working in
our cauao, and so on.
81 soon discovered that she was
one of their secret police and that
she had been sent to try to get
information out of me, and when
she realized that I had discovered
her they fetched her away.
taken before court-martial and
remanded for eight days. I was
later condemned, and on March
10, at o'clock in the evening, I
was taken off to Germany. I don't
know what came out with regard
to the sentence, but I knew my
chief Gffense was supposed to be
recruiting and procuring false
papers. They did tell me l was
given Cw: years hard labor for
\ the papa and a month for hav-
ing told Major Won Boyer that he
was very impolite-on an occa-
sion when he told me to shut up,
only in much worse language.
"Hose-Piped'' for Bath
''We5 myself, and another two
women, were sent to Siegsburg.
and put tnto cell where they had
been cleaning vegetables for
goodness knows how long. Pota-
to Feelings and vegetable waste
were all over the place and the
smell was enough to knock one
down. You would not have put q
dog into such filthy hole. There
was nothing to sit on. They
brought US two sacks with straw
inside, but they were in such a
filthy condition it was not posi-
BILE to lie on them. I had a trunk
with ma and we spent the night
sitting on that
CATER this, no matter what our
conditiJ,I, we were obliged to sub
nit every week to being hose
piped--which they called taking
a bath--in the presence of a num-
{ Der of men.
81 was put into solitary confine-
ment after being numbered off
my cell Icing one of the smaller
ones. which were supposed to be
used only as sleeping rooms for
the prisoners who worked out OF
doors. Everything thew could dc
to make things worse for me, be.
cause I, was. English. was done.
breakfast consisted of coffee
made from dried chestnuts and
chicory leaves and a piece Of
black brad, "enerally mouldv in
the middle. Dinner consisted OF
soup tret the pigs at home
would never have been served
with Tea was an exact repeti-
ton Of breakfast. and for sumner
all we got was hot water. That
was all had to live on for well
over three months For beds we
go* sacks Of straw, a straw pill
(uontinued on Page 81