war-ridden land. Few generations had escaped the pestilence.

At no great distance lay the little city which had been handed over to
us by the French Government for a naval base, one of the ports where our
troops and supplies are landed. Those who know provincial France will
visualize its narrow streets and reticent shops, its grey-white and ecru
houses all more or less of the same design, with long French windows
guarded by ornamental balconies of cast iron--a city that has never
experienced such a thing as a real-estate boom. Imagine, against such
a background, the bewildering effect of the dynamic presence of a few
regiments of our new army! It is a curious commentary on this war that
one does not think of these young men as soldiers, but as citizens
engaged in a scientific undertaking of a magnitude unprecedented. You
come unexpectedly upon truck-loads of tanned youngsters, whose features,
despite flannel shirts and campaign hats, summon up memories of Harvard
Square and the Yale Yard, of campuses at Berkeley and Ithaca. The
youthful drivers of these camions are alert, intent, but a hard day's
work on the docks by no means suffices to dampen the spirits of the
passengers, who whistle ragtime airs as they bump over the cobbles. And
the note they strike is presently sustained by a glimpse, on a siding,
of an efficient-looking Baldwin, ranged alongside several of the tiny
French locomotives of yesterday; sustained, too, by an acquaintance
with the young colonel in command of the town. Though an officer of
the regular army, he brings home to one the fact that the days of the
military martinet have gone for ever. He is military, indeed-erect and
soldierly--but fortune has amazingly made him a mayor and an autocrat,
a builder, and in some sense a railway-manager and superintendent
of docks. And to these functions have been added those of police
commissioner, of administrator of social welfare and hygiene. It will
be a comfort to those at home to learn that their sons in our army in
France are cared for as no enlisted men have ever been cared for before.

IV

By the end of September I had reached England, eager to gain a fresh
impression of conditions there.

The weather in London was mild and clear. The third evening after I had
got settled in one of those delightfully English hotels in the heart
of the city, yet removed from the traffic, with letter-boxes that still
bear the initials of Victoria, I went to visit