SEMPST.

In Sempst a similar condition of affairs existed.  Houses were burning and in some of them were the charred remains of civilians.

In a bicycle shop a witness saw the burned corpse of a man.  Other witnesses speak to this incident.

Another civilian, unarmed, was shot as he was running away.  As will be remembered, all the arms had been given up some time before by order of the Burgomaster.

The corpse of a man with his legs cut off, who was partly bound, was seen by another witness, who also saw a girl of 17 dressed only in a chemise, and in great distress.  She alleged that she herself and other girls had been dragged into a field, stripped naked, and violated, and that some of them had been killed with the bayonet.

WEERDE.—­At Weerde four corpses of civilians were lying in the road.  It was said that these men had fired upon the German soldiers; but this is denied.  The arms had been given up long before.

Two children were killed in a village, apparently Weerde, quite wantonly as they were standing in the road with their mother.  They were 3 or 4 years old and were killed with the bayonet.

A small farm burning close by formed a convenient means of getting rid of the bodies.  They were thrown into the flames from the bayonets.  It is right to add that no commissioned officer was present at the time.

EPPEGHEM.—­At Eppeghem on Aug. 25 a pregnant woman who had been wounded with a bayonet was discovered in the convent.  She was dying.  On the road six dead bodies of laborers were seen.

ELEWYT.—­At Elewyt a man’s naked body was tied up to a ring in the wall in the back yard of a house.  He was dead, and his corpse was mutilated in a manner too horrible to record.  A woman’s naked body was also found in a stable abutting on the same back yard.

VILVORDE.—­At Vilvorde corpses of civilians were also found.  These villages are all on the line from Malines to Brussels.

BOORT MEERBEEK.—­At Boort Meerbeek a German soldier was seen to fire three times at a little girl 5 years old.  Having failed to hit her, he subsequently bayoneted her.  He was killed with the butt end of a rifle by a Belgian soldier who had seen him commit this murder from a distance.

HERENT.—­At Herent the charred body of a civilian was found in a butcher’s shop, and in a handcart twenty yards away was the dead body of a laborer.

Two eyewitnesses relate that a German soldier shot a civilian and stabbed him with a bayonet as he lay.  He then made one of these witnesses, a civilian prisoner, smell the blood on the bayonet.

HAECHT.—­At Haecht the bodies of ten civilians were seen lying in a row by a brewery wall.

In a laborer’s house, which had been broken up, the mutilated corpse of a woman of 30 to 35 was discovered.

A child of 3 with its stomach cut open by a bayonet was lying near a house.