"On October 1st, 1914, a telegraphic agency (Wolff's?) issued the following notice: 'A high Bavarian officer writing from the front has informed the _München-Augsburger Abendzeitung_ of this incident. South of Cambrai a column of German motor-cars was attacked by a company of French cyclists. For the most part the guard was killed by rifle fire, while the cars were all burnt. Later a German patrol discovered the remains, and on investigation, found that the dead Germans had all had their eyes gouged out.'" The reverend Father comments as follows: "On following up this case, it was impossible to prove whether the patrol had seen rightly or whether they had really made the report at all. So much is certain, however, that in the matter of eyes being gouged out, an absolute mania of gruesomeness broke loose. An innumerable swarm of such horrible tales were told, passed on, and finally guaranteed as true--AND YET THEY WERE ALL FAIRY-TALES. A few cases will suffice. "In September, 1914, the following paragraph appeared in the papers: 'Several ladies engaged in Red Cross work on Cologne Station were informed with every assurance of truth, that a hospital at Aix-la-Chapelle contained a whole ward full of wounded whose eyes had been gouged out on the battlefields of Belgium.' "On September 26th the editor of the Catholic _Kölnische Volkszeitung_ wrote to Dr. Kaufmann, a high Roman Catholic dignitary in Aix-la-Chapelle, begging him to ascertain whether the report were true. Two days later that gentleman replied: 'As regards the rumour mentioned in your letter, I beg to inform you that I at once put myself in communication with the authorities. I inquired of the doctor in charge of a hospital here (he is, by the way, a famous specialist for the eyes), and he assures me that in all the local hospitals there is no ward for wounded whose eyes have been put out, AND SUCH A CASE HAS NEVER BEEN OBSERVED in the town, although the place is full of wounded.' "A second report which the same journal exposed dates from October, 1914. Recently Dean A., who is the Superior in a military hospital in the Franciscan Nunnery at S., came to us and reported that a wounded soldier had told him that he had heard[124] that in the monastery Bl. by V., in Holland, there were twenty-two wounded German soldiers whose eyes had been gouged out by Belgians. The Dean begged us to write to the Mother Superior and ask for confirmation of the story. We did write, and the lady answered that there was no hospital at all in the cloister Bl."[125] [Footnote 124: The words "hear" and "heard" occur very frequently in these legends.--Author.] [Footnote 125: The Rev. Duhr's book, pp. 11-12.] The same lie travelled to Bonn, Sigmaringen, Potsdam, Bremen, and was successively nailed down by the _Volkszeitung_. Inquiries were made in all directions wherever a case of gouged-out eyes was reported, the result being everywhere the same--a fairy-tale.