It was a frequent practice to
set apart the adult males of the condemned district with a view to the
execution of a suitable number--preferably of the younger and more
vigorous--and to reserve the women and children for milder treatment.
The depositions, however, present many instances of calculated cruelty,
often going the length of murder, toward the women and children of the
condemned area. We have already referred to the case of Aerschot, where
the women and children were herded in a church which had recently been
used as a stable, detained for forty-eight hours with no food other than
coarse bread, and denied the common decencies of life. At Dinant sixty
women and children were confined in the cellar of a convent from Sunday
morning till the following Friday, (Aug. 28,) sleeping on the ground,
for there were no beds, with nothing to drink during the whole period,
and given no food until the Wednesday, "when somebody threw into the
cellar two sticks of macaroni and a carrot for each prisoner." In other
cases the women and children were marched for long distances along
roads, (e.g., march of women from Louvain to Tirlemont, Aug.
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