olical crime--and officers and
noncommissioned officers would knock at every door until the household
was roused. A handbill, about octavo size, was handed in, and the
officer passed on to the next house. The handbill contained printed
orders that every member of the household must rise and dress
immediately, pack up a couple of blankets, a change of linen, a pair of
stout boots, a spoon and fork, and a few other small articles, and be
ready for the second visit in half an hour. When the officer returned,
the family were marshaled before him, and he picked out those whom he
wanted with a curt "You will come," "And you," "And you." Without even
time for leave-taking, the selected victims were paraded in the street
and marched to a mill on the outskirts of the town. There they were
imprisoned for three days, without any means of communication with
friends or relatives, all herded together indiscriminately and given but
the barest modicum of food. Then, like so many cattle, they were sent
away to an unknown fate.

[Sidenote: Girls put to farm labor.]

Months afterward some of them came back, emaciated and utterly worn out,
ragged and verminous, broken in all but spirit. I spoke with numbers of
the men. They had been told by the Germans, they said, that they were
going to work on the land. They found that only the women and girls were
put to farm labor.

[Sidenote: Men do construction work in Ardennes.]

[Sidenote: Very little food.]

[Sidenote: No complaints permitted.]

The men were taken to the French Ardennes and compelled to mend roads,
man sawmills and forges, build masonry, and toil at other manual tasks.
Rough hutments formed their barracks. They were under constant guard
both there and at their work, and they were marched under escort from
the huts to work and from work to the huts. For food each man was given
a two-pound loaf of German bread every five days, a little boiled rice,
and a pint of coffee a day. At 8 o'clock in the morning, after a
breakfast consisting of a slice of bread and a cup of coffee, they went
to work. At 4 o'clock in the afternoon they returned for the night and
took their second meal--dinner, tea, and supper all in one. Often they
were buffeted and generally ill-used by their taskmasters. If they fell
ill, cold water, internally or externally, was the invariable remedy.
Once a commission came to see them at work, but they had been warned
beforehand that any man who complained of his t