UNSPEAKABLE BARBARITIES.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 4943, 17 September 1914, Page 5

UNSPEAKABLE BARBARITIES.

COMMITTED BY GERMANS. MORE EVIDENCE COLLECTED. London, Last Night. 'The Press Bureau states that the Belgian Commission’s second report gives instances of German atrocities at Louvain, Malines, and neighbouring villages. In one ease an old woman was bayonetted with her fingers still holding the sewing needle. A man was drowned with his arms and legs out off. A woman was bayonetted, covered in petroleum, and then thrown alive into her own burning house. A woman was slain and burnt, and an old man was suspended by his arms to the rafters and burnt alive. A child, aged fifteen, had its hands tied behind its back, and its body torn open. The report continues: Many corpses of peasants were in an attitude of supplication. Two wounded Belgian soldiers were thrown into a flaming house. TVitnesses completely confirm the statement that the Germans who were retreating unexpectedly into Louvain encountered the German garrison, who fired upon them. The Germans alleged that civilians were guilty, and sacked the town. Drunken soldiers in several towns killed unoffending civilians at random. Fifteen bodies were found on the road between Tirlemont and Louvain. Many others were incinerated on their doorsteps where they were shot in escaping from their burning homes. In some cases drunken Germans fired from deserted houses, and these shots "ere used as a pretext for massacre and incendiarism. In several towns large groups of citizens were threatened with massacre and subjected to the agonies of mental torture. Instances were given of outrages on women and girls. HARROWING STORIES: The Hague, Last Night. Refugees are streaming into Holland from East Belgium. Harrowing stories are told of German butcheries. A drunken German officer at Li nee, near Liege, killed an old man. The latter’s son then shot the murderer, thereupon the Germans fetched the old man’s wife from the kitchen and killed the son before her eyes. In their drunken frenzy they made her drink his blood, all the while threatening her with bayonets. Records are being taken of these and other incidents for the purpose of denouncing the Germans. London, Last Night. Tn an affray near Ostend a German Red Cross man was captured after firing a rifle and a revolver at the Belgians. TO REACH VIENNA. MIDDLE OF OCTOBER. London, Last Night. The belief obtains in Romo that the Russians have opened the way to Budapest,!) and Vienna, because the fortinications on the Austrian frontier are badly manned, and are armel with antiquated guns. The Russians expect to reach Vienna in the middle of October. News of the victories caused tumultuous rejoicing in Petrograd. The audience at the Opera. House sang the national songs. The Allies’ and Japanese Ambassadors, who were in the boxes, bowed their acknowledgments.