New-York tribune., 1919-10-22

| industrial centers. Murders. political
and other, have grown remarkably uu-
merous. Ever since my arrival here in
February there has been one uninter-
rupted flow of murder reports in the
newspapers and on the billboards. the
whole making Germany look like a diff
ferent country from what it was before
the war. Murders for purposes Of rob-
berry and in connection with burglaries
are extremely frequent. And ordinary
burgiaries here in Berlin have passed
all bounds of Imagination.
Crimes in field and forest are things
Of daily occurrence. According to
report from Pomerania "held thieves
proceed with boldness that calls forth
astonishment. They by no means p ct
dark nights for their operations, but
even proceed on moonlight nights, with
wagons and bags, to the fields to gather
their harvest. The thieves load the
shocks of grain upon their wagons and
haul it away. These are the wholesale
operators; they go in troops and we'll
armed and refuse to be driven off by one
or two gendarrnes. Smaller thieves for
the most part go with a bag to the
fields. thrust the heads of the grain
bundles into it, and then trample upon
it till most of the grain is threshed out,
when the empty straw is withdrawn and
thrown away"
Cattle thieves are also operating on
scale that revives our own frontier his
tory Of g generation or two ago. AS
our valiant race Of cowboys took the
law into their own hands against the
cattle thieves, a similar procedure is
recommended here, and appears to be
adopted in some places. "Cattle thefts,"
says one country reporter, "are gaining
the upper hand more and more. Only
self-help, through the energetic action
Of the civil guards, proves a remedy
Then the thieves soon seek less dan
gerous region, although they are usually
we'll armed and do not shrink from an
occasional skirmish. A regular Wild
West scene took place at Aumuehle
Shortly before the morning local started
for Hamburg two fellows we're caught
each carrying a big rucksack of. fresh
beef. AS they were being taken to Jail
they suddenly broke loose, and with pis-
tolls held in readiness, began firing upon
the gendarmes.
"They took to cover and replied in
kind but with equally defective marks
for the nearby Sachsenwald, where
Bismarck growled out his latter days
The robbers were off, but the gendarmes
had the satisfaction Of recovering the
beef and discovering the spot on a
meadow where they had slaughtered a
steer
Roboeries of railway cars, stations
and workshops form a chapter in them
selves. II is astonishing what an
amount of thieving now prevails in q
railway system which. up to five years
ago, was remarkably free from Grim
inal practices. Now freight trains are
attacked by bands Of robbers, who
bring them to halt by giving false
signals at night in lonely places. Then
they rush forward and break open one
or more cars and carry off what they
can. Recently four such cases were
reported within a few days of each
other. In only one instance was it pos
sible to catch the thieves.
All that has been said above goes TO
prove the frightful breakdown Of
morals in Germany, Of which have
already written in previous articles
1t is Il phenomenon that strikes every
observer and the Germans themselves
most Of all. Writers in the news
papers are ever and anon discussing
the matter and trying to suggest ways
and means for lifting the people out
of the present ulire of crime and dis
| honesty. One writer has this to say:
"Precisely this war of four years has
proved what capacity Of self-sacri-
fec lives in our people. We should
| not. however, permit ourselves to be
deceived by that fact, that the break
down which resulted from the impos-
sibility of confronting world of foes
has affected wide circles Of our people
with such a degeneracy as has prob
ably never before been seen to spread
in such force among our people It
cannot be denied that gross selfish
ness-the striving 10 keep an eye to
ones own advantage, the greed to fiji
| ones OWN pockets and 70 snatch from
the general wreck special advantages
for ones self, for particular callings
or classes of the people--has assumed
dimensions which conceal a real dam
ger for the further existence of Ger.
| many"