ut day before yesterday by some
cheerful idiot who probably thought he was doing something good for his
country. The military authorities thereupon announced that if anything
of the sort was done again they would lay waste the quarter of the town
where the act was committed.

Some of the subordinate officers have since told us that von Jarotzky
was a fighting general, and had no business staying in a post requiring
administrative ability. The new man is cut out particularly for this
sort of work, and is going to start a regular German administration.
Functionaries are being brought from Berlin to take things over, and in
a short time we shall, to all intents and purposes, be living in a
German city. The first trains ran to-day in a halting fashion to Liege
and the German frontier. Perhaps we shall have a newspaper.

Most distressing news has come through from Tamines. I had a long talk
to-day with a trustworthy man from there, and his story was enough to
make one's blood run cold. He says that on the evening of the
twenty-first the Germans entered the village after a brush with French
troops which were still in the neighbourhood. Infuriated by the
resistance offered to their advance, they proceeded to vent their rage
on the town. They shot down a lot of villagers, and arrested many more.
A great many escaped to the country. A lot of houses were first sacked,
and then burned. The orgy continued during the night, and through the
next day. On the evening of the twenty-second, something over four
hundred men were collected near the church and lined up to be shot. The
work was done for a time by a firing squad which fired into the crowd
with more or less system, but this was too slow, and finally a
rapid-fire gun was brought out and turned loose. Of course, a great many
were not killed outright and lay groaning among the dead. Now and then
a German would put one out of his misery by a bayonet thrust. Others
settled their own troubles by rolling themselves into the nearby river.
Altogether over six hundred people were shot down, but it is hard to get
any exact figures yet. After the shooting was over, other civilians were
brought out and compelled to bury the dead. My informant says that some
of the scenes attending this duty were quite as poignant as the shooting
itself, for some buried their own fathers and brothers. One man about to
be thrown into the trench was found to be still alive, but the German
doctor, after a curs