ace and are living in the cellars and ruins in great misery and
practically without food.

Out of a clear sky comes a new trouble for the country. The German
Government has come down with a demand for money on a scale that leaves
them speechless. The Belgians are ordered to make a forced payment each
month of forty millions of francs, for twelve months. The two first
payments are to be made by the 15th of next month, and the subsequent
installments on the 10th of succeeding months. It is a staggering total,
but the German authorities are deaf to appeals, and the Provinces will
have to get together and raise the money in some way.

[Publisher's note: An entry from a later part of Mr. Gibson's journal
gives a picture of the Belgian spirit under German rule and one of the
few methods of retaliation they had against German oppression.

The Belgians are getting a good deal of quiet pleasure these days
from a clandestine newspaper called _La Libre Belgique_ which is
published almost in the shadow of the Kommandantur. It is a little
four-page paper that is published "every now and then" and says
anything it likes about the "Occupant." It also publishes news and
texts that are barred from the censored press. It is distributed in
a mysterious way that still has the Germans guessing, although they
have detailed their cleverest sleuths to the task of hunting down
the paper and those responsible for its publication. Every number
is delivered to all the more important German officials in Brussels
and, more remarkable still, it appears without fail upon the desk
of the Governor-General--in that sanctum guarded like the vaults of
the Bank of England. Sometimes it appears in the letter-box in the
guise of a letter from Germany; sometimes it is thrown in the
window; sometimes it is delivered by an orderly with a bundle of
official despatches; sometimes it merely appears from nowhere. But
it never fails to reach the Governor-General. He never fails to
read it and to wax wroth over its contents. Large rewards have been
offered for information about the people who are writing and
printing the paper. The Germans rage publicly, which only adds to
the pleasure that the Belgians get from their little enterprise.

My copy reaches me regularly and always in some weird way as in the
case of the Germans. I don't know who my friend i