New Britain herald., 1919-09-16
Two Others Clubbed to Death, Kansas Farmer Tortured, and One Woman Has All Skin Slashed and Torn From Her Face.
RECITAL IS ONE OF
 MURDER AND RAPE

Washington, Sept. 16-With d num- Der of persons subpoenaed and waiting to be heard, further angles of the Mexican situation were expected to be laid today before the senate foreign relations subcommittee Investigating relations between this country and Mexico.
 The subcommittee last night held its first night session and heard it's first woman witness.
 Advises Against Intervention.
 Miss Agnes Laut who recently re- turned from Mexico, in advising against intervention in Mexico laid be- fore the committee a solution of the M Mexican problem which she character ized as the "beneficent pacification' of Mexico. In cOrroboration of her as sertion that widespread corruption had inflicted on Mexico "nine years of crucifixion' and that "95 per cent. of the population is looking for help" Miss Laut described several of the brutalities of which she knew. She told the committee of two girls who had been clubbed to death and of two American women who were carried into the mountains of Sonora and there forced to remain by their cap
 
 feet to the quick to make simpler the task of guarding them.
 Kidnapped by Mexicans.
 An American girl from Nebraska, she said, now is somewhere in the hills the captive of MeXicans who dragged her from her home near the Gulf coast. When the band appeared they roped her father and mother, and ! z before the Mexicans, they declared they would kill her parents. She faint ed and when revived she found herself alone in the hills with her as- sailants.
 Kills Three Bandits.
 An English woman in the state of Zacateas was more fortunate accord ing to Miss Laut In this case Miss Laut said, the woman shot the bandit who was struggling with her, and then killed two other bandits who held her daughters. Another story she related was that of woman whose skin was stripped from her face, the Mexican cutting from the center of the fore head circularly about the face, then tearing the covering loose.
 Farmer Horribly Abused.
 A hdlSdS ldTDlcE WuS the VlCJ1n or the CedillO brothers in the state of San Luis Potosi, according to her testimony His wife and daughter had gone to Tampico. While they were gone the Mexicans raided the place hanged him to a tree. alternately raising and lowering him and jabbing him with bayonets The man became insane and afterwards died.
 Another example of the treatment of women which she cited was the taking into the hills of more than 40 women and girls from a train the Mexicans had captured.
 duplicates Federal Troops.
 No attempt was made by the with eSs to shield the Carranza soldiery. She admitted that a fair part of the crimes were committed by bandits, but intimated that a number of the so- called bandits were in reality Mexican federal troops. Regarding reports that the rebels have been getting arms and ammunition from the United States she said that through an Amer iCan army office who had made the investigation for her, she found that the rifles of many of the followers of Felix Diaz were of the same pattern used by the Mexican army, and that they had been acquired both by cap ture and by purchase from the M Mexican troops