CALCULATED CRUELTY

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3015, 28 February 1917, Page 5

CALCULATED CRUELTY

TREATMENT OP RUMANIAN PRISONERS. Rome, February 26. Italian newspapers give prominence to a horrible story by an escaped Rumanian prisoner, ■ a robust young peasant,- who was imprisoned in various camps and later sent to tho Italian front to build roads. He says that sixty of his compatriots in one camp died of hunger. The Austrians and Hungarians throughout treated the Rumanians as the Kaiser ordered his soldiers to / treat the Chinese Boxers. When they entered a Rumanian village they destroyed everything not required for immediate use, including farm buildings and orchards. They shot old men and_ women on more suspicion. Life in the prison camps was constant torture. All ; the prisoners were starved, and were forced to work from morn till night under threat of the whip. Some prisoners ate a few of the seeds which thoy were sowing in the fields, and general punishment was ordered. The prisoners were beaten with thick sticks until their spines were almost broken. Some who fainted were hoisted until thoir toes barely touched the ground, and were thus left ' for hours. Others were doubled up and tied with ropes, and left lying on the ground all day. Many fell dead from hunger in the fields. Only a robust constitution saved the prisoners who escaped.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.