The German excuse is embodied in different official documents, some of which enter into detailed descriptions of the reprisals alleged to be in contemplation because of it. These descriptions are in substantial accord with treatment which the committee, from the information in their possession, now know to have been in regular operation for months before either the threat or the so-called excuse for it, and to have continued in regular operation after the solemn promise of April that it should cease. These documents definitely commit the German Command to at least a threatened course of conduct for which the committee would have been slow to fix them with conscious responsibility. Incidentally they corroborate in advance the accuracy, in its incidents, of the information, appalling as it is, which has independently reached the committee from so many sides. As a typical example, the committee set forth a transcript in German-English of one of these pronouncements, of which extensive use was made. It is a notice, entitled, "Conditions of Respite to German Prisoners." As here given, it was handed to a British noncommissioned officer to read out, and it was read out to his fellow-prisoners at Lille on April 15, 1917: Upon the German request to withdraw the German prisoners of war to a distance of not less than thirty kilometers from the front line, the British Government has not replied; therefore it has been decided that all prisoners of war who are captured in future will be kept as prisoners of respite. Very short of food, bad lighting, bad lodgings, no beds, and hard work beside the German guns, under heavy shellfire. No pay, no soap for washing or shaving, no towels or boots, &c. The English prisoners of respite are all to write to their relations or persons of influence in England how badly they are treated, and that no alteration in the ill-treatment will occur until the English Government has consented to the German request; it is therefore in the interest of all English prisoners of respite to do their best to enable the German Government to remove all English prisoners of respite to camps in Germany, where they will be properly treated, with good food, good clothing, and you will succeed by writing as mentioned above, and then surely the English Government will consent to Germany's request, for the sake of their own countrymen. You will be supplied with postcard, note paper, and envelope, and all this correspondence in which you will explain your hardships will be sent as express mail to England. Starved to Death