The charges are treachery, incitement to murder and battle, traitorous attacks, the hiding of machine guns in church towers, the murder, poisoning and mutilation of the wounded. The story ran that the civil population, incited by the clergy, entered actively into hostilities, attacking troops, signaling to the Allies the positions occupied by the Germans. The favorite and most popular allegation was that women, old people and children committed atrocities on wounded Germans, putting out their eyes, cutting off their fingers, ears and noses; and that priests urged them on to do these things and played an active part in perpetrating the crimes. Putting out the eyes became the prize story of all the collection. The German priest, Duhr, runs down each lie to its source, and then prints the official denial. Thus, a soldier of the Landwehr sends the story to Oberhausen (in the Rhine provinces): "At Libramont the Catholic priest and the burgomaster, after a sermon, have distributed bullets to the civil population, with which the inhabitants fire on German soldiers. A boy of thirteen years has put out the eyes of a wounded officer, and women, forty to fifty years old, have mutilated our wounded soldiers. The women, the priest and the burgomaster have been all together executed at Trèves. The boy has been condemned to a long term in the home of correction." The German commander of the garrison at Trèves writes: "Five Belgian francs-tireurs who had been condemned to death by the court martial were shot at Trèves. A sixth Belgian, still rather young, has been condemned to imprisonment for many years. Among the condemned there were neither women, nor priests nor burgomaster." This communication is signed by Colonel Weyrach. Postcards representing Belgian francs-tireurs were placed on sale at Cassel. The commander of the district writes: "The commanding general of the XI Army Corps at Cassel has confiscated the cards." Wagner Bauer, of the Prussian Ministry of War, writes of another tale: "The story of the priest and the boy spreads as a rumor among troops on the march." The _Herner Zeitung_, an official organ, in its issue of September 9, printed the following: "Among the French prisoners was a Belgian priest who had collected his parishioners in the church to fire from hiding on the German soldiers. Shame that German soil should be defiled by such trash! And to think that a nation which shields rascals of that sort dares to invoke the law of humanity!" Frhr. von Bissing, commanding general of the VII Army Corps, writes: "The story of a Belgian priest, reported by the _Herner Zeitung_ does not answer at any point to the truth, as it has since been established. The facts have been communicated to the _Herner Zeitung_ concerning their article." The _Hessische Zeitung_ prints the following under title of "Letters from the Front by a Hessian Instructor":