THE RUTHLESS HUN.

Free Lance, Volume XVI, Issue 839, 4 August 1916, Page 8

THE RUTHLESS HUN.

"Remember the Lusitania " and Ullel IT is enough to make any decent— v 1 minded man or woman physicallysick with disgust to-read of the— utterly abominablewwa r in which theHuns have treated the wives, anddaughters of the citizens of Lille. That every Frenchman's blood has fairly boiled as he haa read of the bestial cruelty inflicted upon these thrice unhappy women and maidens goes without saying. Unless we are very -much mistaken al- - ready many a brave poilu has wrecked a bloody vengeance on a Hun prisoner - for the wrong done to his countrywomen —and. who shall blame him? Just imagine such a scene as that reported from X(ille taking place here in Wellington ! Just figure to yourselves as the - French - expression goes, our wives -and _, daughters being dragged away from their* homes and sent to work in the- ' fields, no doubt under- the whips of a brutal Hun soldiery, or worse still, attached as "orderlies" to German officers! If any one want .to know to-, what depths of bestiality the. German officer can descend, what unspeakable •. villainies he can not only witness without protest, but actually take part in . himself, let him read Professor Mor-..-' -.. gan's cold, calm statement of the bare facts as to German cruelty —and- -worse:-' than cruelty—as they are' set forth in the Professor's hook\ . "The GermanAtrocities." The facts in that book are vouched for by unassailable ' evidence, and. it is difficult to read them without -',:'■; shuddering. ' f - " -■:/-•>-^&.

" » ■»..■*• *. . • ' . What then is the fate of those .poorFrench women likely to be who havebeen driven out of their homes, out ; of their city, and forced either to-work as' beasts of burden for their heartlesstyrants or suffer a fate a thousand times worse, a. fate too horrible to -bemore than hinted at? And yet thereare people in this country who argue in conversation and in the papers that we-; should rega.'d the war-from the-point-of view of a broad humanitarianism. We should like to see one of these people tell a citizen of Lille that it wouldbe wrong to try and destroy Germany's chances of repairing her shattered industrial strength after the war: It isour duty both now and after the war — for some years to coriie—to. regard each and every German as a perfectly - pois-,-ohous creature. The Germans first in- .* culoated the doctrine of " hate. They have put that doctrine into practice by the murders of Nurse Cavell and Captain Fryatt; they have done the samefor our French Allies by their foul maltreatment of the women and girls of" Lille. How then can we, and theFrench, be blamed, if now, and afterthe war, we come to regard the Hunsas monsters rather than human beings.. "Remember the Lusitan?a—and remember Lille"