rs and hates it would be well to lay
stress on some of those deeds which are able to soften the soul. This
morning I see that an article has been passed in one of the most widely
read French journals recommending that no prisoners should be made in
forthcoming battles, but that our enemies should be 'struck down like
wild beasts,' 'butchered like swine'! Nothing, not even the sack of
Senlis, nothing justifies such outbursts of fury." The French soldiers,
M. L'Abbe indicates, confine their denunciations to the Prussian
regulars and speak well of the reserves. "They are men like us, married
men, fathers of families, fair-minded." But for the doctors there is
often a good word: "Le major allemand est venu, nous a soignes, nous a
donne du cafe, du pain." "Le major nous a soignes et donne de la soupe."
There was however, much plundering. The armies which do not plunder are
indeed _rarae aves_. "The animosity of the English against the enemy,"
says the Abbe, "is greater even than ours." "In the evening," runs one
narrative, "the soldiers of the 101st put me in the wood where were many
wounded Frenchmen and a German captain, wounded the day before. He
suffered, he too, poor man (le pauvre malheureux)." When the Germans
came, "some looked askance," but the captain said the Frenchmen had been
kind, and when the Germans had taken him they came back and attended to
the French. It was a bad time in the retreat, but French and German
wounded shared the same fate. (l.c., p. 98.)

WHOSE FAULT?

The poor soldiers, obliged to obey orders under penalty of death,
defending (as they believe) their homes from wanton attack, are surely,
in the mass, but little to blame. The blame rests elsewhere. A body of
Russian prisoners was brought into a village in East Prussia. The
sufferings of the inhabitants during the invasion had made them bitter,
and from the crowd of onlookers there was a scornful outcry. "At that
one of the prisoners bent forward, shook his head and said slowly, with
great, sad eyes, 'It is not your fault, and it is not mine.'" (Dr.
Elisabeth Rotten in _Die Staatsbuergerin_.) Looking at it all with fresh
knowledge, after more than three years of war, I feel that this Russian
spoke for all the peoples, "It is not your fault, and it is not mine."
Meanwhile there still goes on what my wounded friend, writing from Rouen
described as "this orgy of slaughter, this incredible and criminal
lunacy."

AN ORDER AGAINST KINDNESS.