INDIAN PRISONERS.

Clutha Leader, Volume XLIII, Issue 7, 25 July 1916, Page 3

INDIAN PRISONERS.

FAVOPtED BY THE HUNS.

PLEMTf OE FOOD AND CLOTHES

Five hundred and sixty-nine Indian prisoners in the German camp at Wunsdorf, near Zossen (17 miles south of Berlin), ares thoroughly well fed and housed. Such is- the substance of a report by Dis Taylor and McCarthy, who visited the place on May 6 without previous notice and whose statement has been received through the American Embassy in London.

It proves that the Germans can, when they like, treat their prisoners humanely, but it seems to prove that they have some design in discriminating.

The report says that the barracks were good, the bedding satisfactors, that the prisoners had enough clothes and footwear. The bathing arrangements, washing houses, drying buildings and the like were excellent. There are four separate kitchens for the different sects to prepare their food in accordance with their rituals, and sheep are supplied to be slaughtered by the men in accordance with their relfgious tenets. The kitchen men stated that the quantity and quality of the food were satisfactory, so did these in the barracks. The store-house contained rice, wheat-flour, potatoes, tea, sugar, and margarine of satisfactory quality. "The ration of this camp does not follow the official menu of the 'Ministry for War for prisoners of war," says the report. "The diet consists daily of rice, wheat-Hour, tea, spices, sugar, potatoes, meat and margarine, and, three or four times a week, a green vegetable. The protein contents are low according to Western standards but not according to Eastern standards." The interpreter said the meat ration was as much as the men had been accustomed to at homo. The prisoners were of good color and of normal weight. .Many received food parcels from Great Britain, on an average once a week, which they shared. They contain usually a loaf of bread, a small tin of butter and some preserves or table relish; tinned meats they reject on account of religious objection to meat nol prepared according to their ritual.

WOUNDED MADE TO WORK

The disabled British soldiers who returned to England from the prison camp, of Germany have brought back some sad tales of ill-treatment. "The camp food wars so bad that even the rats wouldn't eat it," said a Scotsman, "while our closely packed parcels were half-eaten."

One man, who came from Gottins/en, said he saw 200 Russian prisoners taken to the camp, and they were all so ill and exhausted from starvation that they were unable to walk, and one of them died.

Another .stated that the Germans have sent about '2OOO British and Russian prisoners to dig trenches behind the front line in Poland. Forty went from Gottitigen. They were all 'wounded men, and in many eases their wounds were not even healed.

Most of the men have had opportunities of seeing the conditions now existing among the civil population in Germany. "The women and children used to follow the working parties when they went out," said one man, "and cry out, 'For God's sake give us bread.' "