iforms and costumes, in
proportion as they resemble the French.

In all seriousness the question arose of forbidding the Catholic
Clergy to wear the soutane, as it was the custom in the Latin
countries. It was given up; but steps were taken in the case of the
firemen.

The _Nouvelle Gazette_ of Strassburg published an official notice,
dated the ninth of December, 1915, which emphasized an order
suppressing the uniforms worn by the Alsatian firemen because the cut
was French, as was the cap, and complained that this order was not
everywhere observed:

Recently, in the course of a fire which broke out near
Molsheim, it is an established fact that the firemen wore
their old Alsatian uniforms, and that the fire alarm was
sounded by means of the old clarions of the type in use in
France. The _Kreisdirection_ finds itself obliged to insist
that the suppressed uniforms disappear, and that the
clarions do likewise; and to ask that it be informed of
contraventions that happen in the future.

Other societies and associations, such as the singing
societies which frequently still wear uniforms recalling
those of the French collegians, ought to lay aside the
forbidden garments, which are to be entrusted to the guard
of the police.

But these puerilities seem insignificant compared to other things to
which the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been subjected, things which
unite them more firmly than ever to the French and the Belgians of the
invaded regions.

The great deportations which have been practiced in France and Belgium
have been repeated in Alsace as recently as January, 1917. The
inhabitants of Muelhausen between the ages of seventeen and sixty years
were assembled in the barracks at that place, whence they were sent
into the interior of Germany.

This proceeding has been practiced on a large scale since the war's
beginning. Preventive imprisonment, called _Schutzhaft_, was applied
to Messin Samain, who was first incarcerated at Cologne and then sent
to the Russian front, where he was killed. It was also applied to M.
Bourson, former correspondent of _Le Matin_, who is interned at
Cannstatt in Wurtemburg. Other citizens, after having been held in
prison for weeks and months, have been exiled finally into Germany.

The Germans themselves have been so demoralized by the regime they
have established that the authorities have had to put a check on
anony