"'At night, at about 2 o'clock in the morning, a whole district of the town was invested by the troops of occupation. To each house was distributed a printed notice, of which we give below an exact reproduction, preserving the style and spelling. [See second document, above.] "'The inhabitants so warned were to hold themselves ready to depart an hour and a half after the distribution of the proclamation. "'Each family, drawn up outside the house, was examined by an officer, who pointed out haphazard the persons who were to go. No words can express the barbarity of this proceeding nor describe the heartrending scenes which occurred; young men and girls took a hasty farewell of their parents--a farewell hurried by the German soldiers who were executing the infamous task--rejoined the group of those who were going, and found themselves in the middle of the street, surrounded by other soldiers with fixed bayonets. [Sidenote: Sometimes a kind-hearted officer could not carry out the brutal orders.] "'Tears of despair on the part of parents and children so ruthlessly separated did not soften the hearts of the brutal Germans. Sometimes, however, a more kind-hearted officer yielded to too great a despair, and did not choose all the persons whom he should--by the terms of his instructions--have separated. "'These girls and lads were taken in street cars to factories, where they were numbered and labelled like cattle and grouped to form convoys. In these factories they remained twelve, twenty-four, or thirty-six hours until a train was ready to remove them. "'The deportation began with the villages of Roncq, Halluin, etc., then Tourcoing and Roubaix. In towns the Germans proceeded by districts. [Sidenote: Numbers deported.] "'In all about 30,000 persons are said to have been carried off up to the present. This monstrous operation has taken eight to ten days to accomplish. It is feared, unfortunately, that it may begin again soon. The departures took place in freight cars to the sound of the "Marseillaise." "'The reason given by the German authorities is a humanitarian (?) one. They have put forward the following pretexts: provisioning is going to break down in the large towns in the north and their suburbs, whereas in the Ardennes the feeding is easy and cheap. [Sidenote: Young men and girls lodged in "disgraceful promiscuity."] "'It is known from the young men and girls, since sent back to their families for reasons of health, that in the Department of the Ardennes the victims are lodged in a terrible manner, in disgraceful promiscuity; they are compelled to work in the fields. It is unnecessary to say that the inhabitants of our towns are not trained to such work. The Germans pay them 1.50 m. But there are complaints of insufficient food.