THE EX-CONVICT:
Reading edition
“I was a ‘lifer’; but they found I had so many abilities for teaching civilisation amongst our neighbours, that I am now a soldier”
Crimes against women and young girls have been of appalling frequency. We have proved a great number of them, but they only represent an infinitesimal proportion of those which we could have taken up. Owing to a sense of decency, which is deserving of every respect, the victims of these hateful acts usually refuse to disclose them. Doubtless fewer would have been committed if the leaders of an army whose discipline is most rigorous had taken any trouble to prevent them; yet, strictly speaking, they can only be considered as the individual and spontaneous acts of uncaged beasts.
French Government’s Official Report, September, 1914.
