SECRET PRISONERS

Waikato Times, Volume 89, Issue 13937, 12 December 1918, Page 2

SECRET PRISONERS

CONCEALED IN GERMANY. The French persistently allinn liia!, 1 here are secrel prisoners ill (lennanyiiieii whose families have lost all Irac" of them and suppose them to be ilea.l, but whom the Hermans have concede ! foi' some unfalhoiiieil and unavowable reason.

No doubt they have more reasons for what they say than they have published. 1 myself know of one secret prisoner, whose story I heard at Hulilehen.

Long after the rest of us, there was brought into camp a man obviously of some standing and consideration, whose manner was very dazed and depres- d. By degrees, finding himself among friends, he brightened a little and to!.I some of us why i! was that he had been brought to join so late in the <i i...

He was one of the men-- and th <• are hundreds of them —who had been arrested just before, or just after, the outbreak of war, thrown into pcisi n for no reason except that they were "suspected," and kept in solitary confinement without the oportunity of communication with their friends. As a rule such men were released after a few days or a few weeks, though I have known a few who were detained in those conditions for as long as two months. But this particular man was kept in detention much longer. The time seemed an eternity to him, and he was in despair.

At last he took a desperate step, and tried to smuggle out of the prison a letter written in invisible ink, describing his plight. The attempt was deteced, as, of course, it was bound to be. The offence —luckily, as it happened, for the offender —was one which the gaol governor considered too serious for him to deal with. He therefore reported the case to Berlin, and asked for instructions and the reply widen Berlin sent was an astonishing one. "Who is this man? We had forgotten all about him, and did not knowthat lie was in your hands. Send him to Ruhleben, and we will go into Hie case there."

So he came to Ruhleben, and so f;r as I know the story has no sequel. But is that sort of tiling has happened i > one man it may have happened to several; and it is quite clear that there wll have to be a thorough investigation of all the German prisons after the war m order that the truth may be sifted, justice done, and all those responsible for the oversights, whether these have been intentional or accidental, punished as they deserve.—(By Francis Gribble, in the Daily Mail.)