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Show FORCE BELGIANS TO WORK ATTHE FRONT HAVRE. France, Feb. 12, 3:30 p. m. The Belgian government says U has learned that laborers at Bruges are being be-ing arrested in the streets by Germans and immediately sent to the German. front along tho Yser, where they are forced to do military work, such as pnti ing up barbed wire fences and digging trenches. It is asserted that 75 per cent of t lie men who were compelled to present tohmselves to the military authorities have been taken for work. These men ure between the ages of 15 and Ah. They leave their homes Monday and return Saturday. On their arrival home they are declared to be grcately depressed because of insufficient nourishment, which consists of a quarter of a loaf of war bread in the morning and fruit soup, made of appis and prunes, at noon. This is said to be all the men receive. The Belgian government affirms tha t. contrary to what the Germans say, the Germans are systematically tak! rig mnn who are not idle. At a lare steel mill laborers earning from 7 to S fraii'-s a day have been compelled to quit their jons and work for the Germans. The same is declared to he true of horticultural workers. work-ers. At a weil-known horticultural establishment, estab-lishment, known by the name of Flan-dria. Flan-dria. eleven workers out of twenty-four have beer, taken away. A diamond cutter cut-ter who paid his employees 9 franca a dav saw them all ta ken away from him. A foreman who had been work ing for' one man in Bruges for twenty-seven vears was taken from hi? home, together" with his two sons, neither of whom was Idie It is stated t'n?t no account is taken of certificates or affidavits given hy employers. em-ployers. When employers make demands in behalf of employes the military authorities au-thorities write them that they ,n re disposed dis-posed to return workers on condition thnt the employers designate two unemployed men fur each employed workman liberated. lib-erated. The situation, the Kolgiin government savs, Is no better in the rural districts, where all the sons of farmers are taken awav in masses every Monday morning. Ml farms of seventy-five acres remain without hands for cultivation and all complaints remain unheedel. Children of less than 15 vcais of nm: also are taken. At Leffingh- a youth of 16 was the eldest of his crew, which was composed of bovs of li and 15 years of aire. All these children lived promiscuously with the older workers, in the same s.'ieds and I suffering the same insufficiency of nour- ishnieni-a quarter oi' a iuaf of bread and I soup each day. |