THE GERMANS IN BELGIUM.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLI, Issue 12768, 10 February 1916, Page 7

THE GERMANS IN BELGIUM.

Mr S. P. Triana, in the "Nation." •lives the following amusing story of German rule in Belgium : "An American lady recently returned from Brussels tells of two incidents, eloquent in showing how the refractory Belgians outrage the feelings and the high sense of propriety (a la Prussienne) of their so lately supervened military masters. "Motor car tooting was exclusively limited, by special decree, to military motors; furthermore, certain specific modulations of toots were prescribed. Upon this, every gamin in Brussels commandeered whatever horn, trumpet, whistle, or the like instrument of torture he could lay his hands on. From the instant that any Herman officer ventured on the street, the regulation toot greeted him, and clung to him, bursting forth from the ground he trod, apparently, wherever he might go. Severe punitive dispositions were enacted to safeguard the prestige of the uniform, which in a measure abated the nuisance and soothed the irate heroes of the Yaterland. "On a certain occasion, whilst some officers and a few civil functionaries were sitting ganz gemutlich at a restaurant the obnoxious toot resounded, quite.at hand, necessarily aimed at them, as no military motor was in sight. The tooter could not be found, after diligent search, and yet the toot would recur at irregular intervals. 'Es ist znm tool werden,' remarked the burly major, at the head of the table. "The audacious offender, however, was in time found out. It turned out to be an alien parrot, which some undiscoverable fancier had wilfully and maliciously trained. "At this point German thoroughness came to the rescue in its imperial integrity. The bird was/placed under arrest and charged with insulting the German army, before a court-martial, over which the burly major • presided. It was questioned ; its replies were not only, as might have been expected, parrot-like and incoherent, but irrelevantly profane, and it would most aggravatingly insist on tooting, regardless of »the majesty and the solemnity of the court. This was too much for the presiding major ;. he dropped the bird into eternity, snooting it then and there, without any more ado, like a mere mayor of a newly-invested Belgian or French town. The honour of the uniform thus was vindicated from the slur of biped offenders, feathered and otherwise."