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Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16397, 17 December 1918, Page 6

"We wish the members of the Commercial Travellers' and AVarehou semen's Association all success in their project for lifting the debt of £8000 that rests on Lancaster Park, and we congratulate them on this further proof of their public-spiritod enterprise. It would be a great misfortune if the Park were lost to the city. Old players, present players, and that useful, if somewhat criticised, portion of tho public that does its playing from tho bank, and cheerfully pays its shilling for tho privilege, all would deplore tho loss of a fine eports' ground, ■which, for more than a generation has contributed in no small degree to tho development and popularity of clean sport in this community. If "the travellers" give tho lead, wo have no fear that the public will not support them as thoy .deserve.

Legal charges against the Kaiser multiply, the subject of the latest charge, which is laid by an organisation of mothers in Lille, being based on the action of officers of the Germany army, and, therefore, agents of tho Kaiser, who caused tho abduction of 8000 young women of Lille at Easter, 1916. Wo referred briefly to this atrocity some days ago. It was the greatest outrage that tortured Lille suffered during tho four years of German occupation. Tho inhabitants were warned that they -were all' to be in thoir houses at 9 o'clock at night, but that at a summons all the members of a family were to assemble in tho doorway. Squads of soldiers visited House -- after house, and the officers pointed now to one girl, and then to another, ordering their men to take them away. Somo girls were dragged shrieking from their beds, where they had hoped to escape notice. For six nights this -went on, while the members of every household waited in fear for the dreaded summons. * When tho task of selection was completed all the girls were herded at tho station. They wore of all conditions — "young girls of gentle birth, wives of ■working men, and womon of the town," says tho correspondent of "The Times," who had the awful story from many residents of the city. At the station "they were intimately examined by German army doctors," to see. if they were in good health. No detail, says the correspondent, seems to have been omitted which could make the whole tiling vile and repellent to every civilised instinct. Thon the girls were sent far away into Germany to be put to field work there, under conditions which made life a misery and a horror to them, an ineffaceable memory of hell upon earth. It was tho 64th Regiment of German Infantry that carried out this fiendish work. The Lille people said that some of the soldiers were haggard and almost sic£ with horror at what they to do, while two officers were punished for refusing to have any part in the work. Dreadful as it was, however, the crime of Lille is only one count in tho long indictment against the Kaiser, whose punishment must be something more material than the obloquy of the civilised world.

Tliere has never been any definite statement as to tho strength of the American fleet in European waters, which has just been recalled home. It was said some little time ago that ib numbered altogether 270 vessels, but no indication was given of the strength «f the different classes of ships., among which submarine chasers no doubt bulked largely. The American antisubmarine work was particularly effective, and was declared by the First

Lord of the British Admiralty, when he was visiting Washington in October, to have helped largely to bring tho U-boat to the position of being held, if not mastered. ♦ Sir Eric Geddes spoke most warmly of the manner in •which the American fleet had co-operated with the British. He referred to the "affection, in many cases personal,"' and the admiration which the Admiralty and the officers and men of the Navy felt for the American officers and men. '"The representatives of each of the Allied Navies, ho added, "are at home and "welcome comrades in every other Allied Admiralty. None of the navies do much talking, but among themselves thoy talk in the same language, and they share the same dangers and undertake the same responsibilities." Tho American fleet has not enjoyed tho opportunity for distinguishing itself for which it yearned, but it did very well what it could, and it deservedly shared in tho honour of receiving the surrendered German fleet

There is little in common, ordinarily, between Ohristehurch and Tangier, in Morocco, hut the rcccnt epidemic has created, unfortunately it may be said, a. bond based on common suffering between cities and countries half the world away from each other. Tho epidemic, now known, as pandemic pneumonia but then still styled Spanish influenza, struck Tangier about tho middle of September, and raged like firo through grass among the Moorish population. Tangier and tho surrounding district constitute an international zone, and tho hygienic administration, of tho city is in the hands of a council of tho representatives of the European Powers, who neither met nor made tho slightest effort to cope with the epidemic for three weeks after it began to devastate the population. The mortality and suffering among tho Moors, who were loft without the most elementary advice as to tho precautions they should take, were simply appalling. New Zealand doctors had to work hard enough during tho epidemic, but in Tangier only one doctor of tho French dispensary was availablo to look after the sick in tho native suburbs of the town and the surrounuing villages of the Tangier zone, extending over 200 square miles of country, with pneumonia in practically every house, and often 110 member of a family well enough oven to give tho other a drink of water. International control is rarely a success, hut in Morocco it must reach the lowest depths of futility.