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Show BRANDED SLAVES TOIL FOR TEUTON MASTERS IN NORTHERN FRANCE Men and Women, in "Slavery Army" Wear Badges of Servitude 'and 'Are Treated With Great Brutality, Says 4 Escaped Civilian. TTAWA, r'eb. ?: A London dispatch to the Ottawa agem-v of "Rcu- 0trr'. Limited, says it has reroived from a trustworthy Belgian t.-itizen. who Las just reaehed London from the Gvrtnan mihtary zudo at Valeuriennes, an account uf terrible conditions existing in the of-ui'ied districts of France, from which virtually do ec-.ts ever reaches Kngland. 1'or olnious reans it oul i not be stated how this man escaped, lie still bore traces of a heavy Mow on the jaw. and showed .Renter's representative a handful of Datural teeth, which had been knocked out by the butt end of a German guard's rifle, lie said: 'The Germans ha'.e organized a slavery army in the .one of northern France. When I left s-t. Aniand a few weeks ago conditions were unbearable. un-bearable. All the men between the au-es of 17 and ij have been taken away. Lnmarried w-nmen under 40 are obliged to' work in the fields, while girls from 12 to 11 inu5t collect acorns and nettles. BADGES OF SLAVERY. ' Kverywhere you meet civilians working under armed guard. Eery-oeo Eery-oeo wears a brassard, showing the town hecomes from. Some wear brassards bras-sards around the leg, showing they tried to escape. I saw an old man with a large cross painted on his ba'-k. I kner what that signified. If ycKi refuse to work ynu are fined: if you refuse to pay the fine you are imprisoned;, if you refuse a second time you ae sent to Germany, from where one seldom comes back alivj. "Besides civilian prisoners, the German Lave great numbers of war , prisoners behind the lines, working under terrible conditions. The English are especially badly treated. Ail want food, but the . sufferings of the Russians owdng to lack of food arc awful. It was while I was endeavoring to gjc a starving Ttussian a Little of my own small supply of food that the armed guard knocked out my teeth." The informant told how domestic clocks and lamps are broken up for copper, mattresses, are ripped for wool and sa-ks and clothes are seized. Farmers and peasants must declare everything. "Wherever you turn your eyes the same tragedy is everywhere starvation, slavery and untold brutality, he concluded. i |