A GERMAN OUTRAGE ON ENGLISHMEN.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 76, 28 August 1874, Page 3

A GERMAN OUTRAGE ON ENGLISHMEN.

The following story (very slightly shortened) is from a Dresden letter in the Continental Herald. The particulars have been gathered from ouc of the victims. Captain Btandish de Courcy o'Grady, late of her Majesty's 64th Regiment, an officer who served with distinction during the Indian mutiny : The captain is deaf, and he knows scarcely any German. On the evening of the sth instant, Captain O'Grady drove, with his wife and three daughters, to the Leipsic railway station, to see the former off, on her way to London. She was to be accompanied by Mr Penny, a well-known resident of Dresden, and his daughter. Captain O'Grady had said "goedbye" to his wife, and was walking down the platform when he suddenly felt a hand laid on his shoulder. Turning round he found himself confronted by a railway officer, who was holding by the arm Mr Edwin Penny, a student at Freiberg, who had come with his father to the station. The two were engaged in what appeared to Captain O'Grady to be a somewhat heated altercation. Deaf, and ignorant of the language, he had not the most remote idea what it was all about, but fearing something unpleasant might possibly happen, he made with his hands a deprecatory gesture, exclaiming at the same time, " Nein! Neiu !" No sooner was this doue than he and his friend Penny were surrounded by a number of railway porters and policemen, and hurried towards one of the ofnees. Several English and American gentlemen, who had witnessed these proceedings, now came forward with the offers of assistance and ready to afford explanation, but they were sternly ordered to withdraw, under threat of being themselves taken into custody. After some conversation among the captors, the prisoners were told they must each pay five thalers. Captain O'Grady, through Mr Edwin Penny, who knows Gerraau, declined to pay that or any other sum, and demanded to know of what he was accused. Mr Penny took the same course, and explained that he was talking to his father and sister, at the door of the carriage in which they had taken their seats, when he was seized by a policeman with whom he was demonstrating for his roughness at the moment Captain O'Grady turned round. After a detention of half-au-hour, and a peremptory refusal to permit Captain O'Grady to speak to his daughters, both gentlemen were taken in a cab, under strong escort, to the police station near the Neumarkt, and brought before one of the officials who said it was too late for him to do anything in the case then, but they must each pay twenty-five thalers, or be locked up. They demanded, in vain, to know with what offence they were charged, and declined to make any payment. They were thereupon locked up in different cells, but on the whole civilly treated, though their pockets were rigidly searched, and their money and everything else taken from them. They were allowed to order their supper and their breakfast next morning from a neighboring hotel ; and in consideration of Captain O'Grady's ignorance of the language, his young friend was allowed to take his meals with him. In the morning they were again brought before the gentleman they had seen the night before, and the captain, in the absence of Mr Penny, was asked by an officer of the Court who knows English if he would consent to pay the twenty-five thalers, previously demanded. No charge was, however, made against him, and he asked in vain to be told of what he was accused. He was strongly advised to lodge the money, being assured that in the event of further investigation being in his favor the amount paid would be "accounted for," and he would be released In a few minutes Both gentlemen then agreed to pay, after which they were conducted back to their cells, with the assurance that in ten minutes their imprisonment would cease. But they remained there until six o'clock in the evening, when they were taken into the room in which they had been searched the night before. After their things had been shown to them, and their money counted over, but not returned, they were led to the outer door, each put separately into a cab, under charge of an officer, and driven to a building in Landhausstrasse. Here they were searched by a person supposed tn be a police inspector. Then appeared an individual in jail uniform, who made another and more minute search of their persons, felt them roughly all over, turned their pockets inside out, and finally deprived the captain of his braces, leaving him to shift without them in the best way he could. The two were then ushered into distinct, bub adjoining and strongly barred cells ; and after being regaled with a supper of black bread and water, left to their thoughts. In the morning, after another frugal repast of black bread and water, the two unfortunates were again brought before a " man in authority," who received, or, to put tin; transaction more correctly, " took," their fifty thalers, and bade them go, an order with which they were only too glad to comply.