The Thames Star. SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1917. THE UNSPEAKABLE HUN

Thames Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 18357, 2 June 1917, Page 2

The Thames Star.

SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1917. THE UNSPEAKABLE HUN

ffiot SEar "With malice towards none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right „.,.. —Lincoln

A party of British and Italian J members of Parliament recently paidi a. visit to the por&on of Northern France which was devastated by'the' Germlantf'during their retreat, and the result, of the inspection- as g.ven to the public by Mr. H. J. °iMacKindier, one of the members of G.asgow, who writes &> the London Times confining himself .to certain facts .that came within Ms own .! iknowledige*. These' are however J typical of the whole tragedy. The i cutting 1 down of trees is regarded hy ' the writer, as it is by the French, peasa-ntry, as a, special act of wickod- : ness. vln ord'ar to fully tindierstfuid what has been done, he explains that 'the district visited was one of the richest fruit (growing" districts, of France. Every fieldl in the countvyside was studded with fine trees, from, '20 to 100' year® old—apples, pears, and cherries. They stood all over ih& la.Tidisoa.pe with the regularity '■ o<f chessmen on a chess board. Tons of thousands of these trees have now been felled. They lie across the 'fields ■'ranged, in ranks lik© men lying \ in extended 'order, not a branch hay- ! ing been lopped away, and each j stump' having' a white, newly-cut top ■j to it. In some communes a few' tieesi I remain standing, hut even of these whole groups (have rings neatly chippedl round them so that they will die. At Coucy-le-iChatieau there stood the massive remains of a round tower, the. keep of ia Medieval castle. This untenanted;- <ruLn was on© of the most remarkable monuments of its kind' im France, and, indeed Europe. It now exists no longer. The destruction of it is complete. There is no military .excuse for this crime. At 'Qhauny every single house, except in one suburb, has been destroyedl by an explosion, from the cellar. At Jussy there was even greater tliorouglhness, for whereas at Chauny unroofed, and ruined church and houses still stand, and make a tragic appeal to the imaginationl, Jussy has, been literally razed to the ground. It was a well-to-do Tittle market . town, of some two or three thousand inhabitantsl, almost every house of it with a cellar, a- little front garden, : and an iron gateway and paling's 1. Today Jussy is like the spoil heap of ja. mine, with a rough surface of | -broken brick at about the eye-level .of a istamdingi man. It is said that I the German object in all this has been to frighten the peasantry . of/France into peace. If that be indeed so, they have not reckoned with the i French Army. The indications nre 1 all of a set determination to take a terrible (retribution.