Canadian Forestrij Journal, Sep I ember, If) 17 



1289 



Fining Offenders for Causing Fires 



The record of two acquittals and 

 eleven convictions ouL of thirteen 

 forest fire suits is mentioned in a 

 statement of the Chief Forest Fire 

 Warden of Pennsylvania. Altogether 

 forty-seven suits have been started 

 for the setting of forest fires. In 

 addition to the above acquittals and 

 convictions, thirty-one cases are 

 pending and three have been with- 

 drawn. 



Following the policy of making 

 the punishment fit the crime by pre- 



senting bills for costs and damages 

 caused by forest fires, no less than 

 ninety-six cases have been settled 

 out of court since April 1st through 

 the payment of these bills by the 

 guilty persons. Claims to the num- 

 ber of 415 have been presented for 

 this spring's fires only, 226 of them 

 to railroads. Settlements are still 

 being made daily, and the chances 

 are that almost one-half of the 400 

 cases will be settled without recourse 

 to law. 



French Woodlands Razed in Retreat 



The brutal vindictiveness of the 

 retreating German forces on French 

 soil, when nothing that remotely re- 

 sembled "property" was left unspoil- 

 ed, is described by the military cor- 

 respondent of the Berlin "Lokal An- 

 zeiger" in this manner: 



"In the course of these last months 

 great stretches of French territory 

 have been turned by us into a dead 

 country. It varies in width from 

 ten to twelve or fifteen kilometers 

 (six and a quarter to seven and a 

 half or eight miles), and extends along 

 the whole of our new position, pre- 

 senting a terrible barrier of desola- 

 tion to any enemy hardy enough to 

 advance against our new lines. No 

 village or farm was left standing on 

 this glacis, no road was left passable, 

 no railway-track or embankment was 

 left in being. Where once were 

 woods there are gaunt rows of stumps; 

 the wells have been blown up; wires, 

 cables, and pipe-lines destroyed. In 

 front of our new positions runs, like 

 a gigantic ribbon, an empire of 

 death." 



The Berlin Tageblait is also found 

 gloating over this destruction of the 

 dwellings and property of helpless 

 peasants in this burst of fine writing. 



"And the desert, a pitiful desert, 

 leagues wide, bare of trees and under- 



growth and houses They sawed 

 and hacked; trees fell and bushes 

 sank; it was days and days before 

 they had cleared the ground. In this 

 war-zone there was to be no shelter, 

 no cover. The enemy's mouth must 

 stay dry, his eyes turned in vain to 

 the wells — they are buried in rubble. 

 No four walls for him to settle down 

 into — all leveled and burned out; 

 the villages turned into dumps of 

 rubbish; charches and church-towers 

 laid out in ruins athwart the roads." 



All this was done in the territory 

 which the French armies had to cross 

 before reaching their present position 

 before wSt. Quentin. Bu^ to what avail? 



It checked them not a bit. Across 

 the desert waste they Duilt highways 

 and rebuilt roads. The wells were 

 poisoned. The armies laid water- 

 pipes for their supply. Every farm- 

 house and peasant's cot was reduced 

 to dust. They carried their own 

 shelter. The 'terrible barrier of 

 death' was to them no barrier, only 

 a reason why they must push for- 

 ward with renewed strength and 

 determination to hew down the van- 

 dals guilty of the barbarous destruc- 

 tion. Now in front of St. Quentin 

 they see the Boches engaged in the 

 same work preparatory to their next 

 flight. 



