* * * *

I am working hard to get British prisoners properly clothed.
Winter is already here. Efforts to starve Germany will not
succeed. We shall be on meat and butter cards, but that is only a
precaution. The people still are well in hand. Constant rumours
of peace keep them hopeful. Men over forty-five not yet called.
They seem to have plenty of troops. The military are careless of
the public opinion of neutrals; they say they are winning and do
not need good opinion. I am really afraid of war against us after
this war--if Germany wins. We had snow, ice, and cold weather at
the end of October.

There have been uneasy movements among the people in Leipzig, a
great industrial centre, and the _Volkzeitung_, a Socialist paper
there, has been put under permanent preventive censorship.

All these movements start with the question of the price of food.

The Prussian Junkers, however, are really benefited by the war.
They get, even with a high "stop price," three times as much as
formerly for their agricultural products and pay only a small
sum, sixty pfennig daily, for the prisoners of war who now work
their fields. They may, in addition, have to pay the keep of the
prisoners, but that is very small. Camp commanders are allowed
sixty-six pfennig per head per diem.

* * * * *

There is much talk of peace. The shares of the Hamburg-American
Line and the shares of the Hamburg-South American Line have risen
enormously in price from fifty-six to one hundred and forty in
one case. This may be caused by an advantageous sale of some
shares of the Holland-American Line or by promise of a subsidy,
or by hopes of peace.

* * * * *

There is no question but that every man under forty-five that can
drag a rifle has been drafted for the army, with the possible
exception of men working in railways, munitions, etc.

Yesterday I noticed many women working on the roadbed of the
railway.

* * * * *

The new Peruvian Minister is named von der Heyde; his father was
a German.

The Greek Minister still thinks Greece will stay out of the war.
His father is one of the cabinet.

* * * * *

The Germans are very glad to get rid of Brand Whitlock. For some
time they have been looking for an excuse to expel him.

* * * * *

The dyestuff and other chemica