uted all the available
food among the suffering population. The bad condition of the
roads and the consequent lack of supplies in the army itself
made it impossible for them to do more.--(_Daily News_, February
21, 1916.)

_On quarter rations_--that is worth remembering.

NOT ALL BARBARIANS, NOR ALL CHIVALROUS.

We have all of us heard many stories from our soldier friends. Many
statements and opinions we cannot in these days publish, but some are
allowable. Such as the following: "Some of our men were hung up on the
German barbed wire. We could do nothing to get at them. We saw the
Germans trying to make signs from their trenches and we couldn't at
first make out what they meant, but presently some of them ventured out
and took in our wounded. I turned to my mate and said, 'They tell us all
the Germans are barbarians, but that doesn't look much like it.' It was
difficult to keep some of our men from firing on the Germans even then."
The last statement will surprise only those who have not been told the
truth about war. Passion gets the upper hand of humanity, and indeed
reason may support passion, for is not destruction of the enemy one of
the chief aims of war? Shall we spare the enemy when rescuing their
_own_ wounded? By war logic that would be inconceivably foolish. Hence
such incidents as the following: A lieutenant of Hussars wrote on
October 22, 1914, of his work in a loft which he had previously
loopholed. The letter is both frank and generous, and as usual with
soldiers' letters, without any of the malicious sanctity which so besets
the civilian. The letter was published in the _Times_, November 26,
1914. "When I got up I could see crowds of Germans advancing. I think
they have learnt a lesson from us, for they didn't advance in masses,
but in extended order like we do. They were jolly good, too.... One
fellow was jolly brave. I saw him carrying back a wounded man on his
back, and it made a very good target. Though we didn't succeed in
hitting him, he had to drop his man.... We were having jolly good fun."
One sentence shows how far removed are the ethics of war from the ethics
of peace: "I saw him carrying back a wounded man on his back, _and it
made a very good target_."

And here is a case where chivalry was remembered and forgotten. The
extract is from the _Daily News_, May 17, 1916. Most of us may get
similar information privately, but it is wisest to confine oneself to
what has