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Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 245, 19 November 1914, Page 6

Stories, accompanied by circumstantial details, of dreadful atrocities allegedly perpetrated by brutal German soldiery on civilians and wounded soldiers, continue to be supplied to a patient public. "While it is not improbable jthat some war-drunk, wine-drunk Germans have displayed; all the instincts of the savage, it must be pointed out that these blood-curdling narrations are, quite unconfirmed. The riaeoii l tears are in much the same position as Kipling's unforgettable ''Tomlinsou J ' — "somebody told them." Early in the war word came of a horrible outrage on a Scottish nurse. Current English exchanges record the fact that a woman of the same name pleaded guilty to forging such a fiction and was convicted. That has stepped into the breach with an exinformation was not vouchsafed us by cable. A reputable American correspondent, after a long search, tracked down a nur.se who, it was reported throughout the world, had had her wrists cut by Uhlans. He found that the woman's wrists were injured—by an accident with boiling water. These grim pictures of mutilated soldiers, women, and children are accompanied by no* impressive proof. A photograph of one of those "little children (presumably Belgians) at Folkestone with their hands hacked off at the wrist to prevent tliem ever carrying a rifle," should, be easily obtainable, but this evidence is not proffered. Why? The'pic-, torial journals, in all their smart photographic captures, have never yet managed to obtain these sensational proofs of German savagery, though the* London hospitals can apparently provide numerous subjects. Unemotional people would be well advised to give little heed to these sanguinary little stories until some verification is advanced.