come forward; not only the athletes and the healthy, but in
all cases the most unlikely men have rushed to the front, and have done
brilliantly. The mortality, however, has been appalling. In an ordinary
way one loses one killed to eight or nine wounded; but in this war the
number of Cambridge men killed and missing practically equals the number
of wounded." Of the effect upon the University an eye-witness says:
"Eighty per cent of the College rooms are vacant. Rows and rows of houses
in Cambridge are to let. All the Junior Fellows are on service in one
capacity or another, and a great many of the Seniors are working in
Government Offices or taking school posts"--so that the school education
of the Country may be carried on. Altogether, nearly 12,000 Cambridge men
are serving; 980 have been wounded; 780 have been killed; 92 are missing.

As to one's friends and kinsfolk, let me recall the two gallant grandsons
of my dear old friend and publisher, George Murray Smith, the original
publisher of _Jane Eyre_, friend of Charlotte Bronte, and creator of the
_Dictionary of National Biography_. The elder one, who had just married
before going out, fought all through the retreat from Mons, and fell in
one of the early actions on the Flanders front. "He led us all the way,"
said one of his men afterwards. All the way!--All through the immortal
rear-guard actions of August--only to fall, when the tide had turned, and
the German onslaught on Paris had been finally broken! "In all my
soldiering," writes a brother officer, "I have never seen a warmer feeling
between men and their officer." "Was he not," asks a well-known Eton
master, "that tall, smiling, strong, gentle-mannered boy at
White-Thomson's?"--possessing an "affectionate regard and feeling for
others which boys as boys, especially if strong and popular, don't always,
or indeed often possess." The poor parents were uncertain as to his fate
for many weeks, but he finally died of his wounds in a hospital behind the
German lines. Then, little more than six months later came the second
blow. Geoffrey, the younger brother, aged nineteen, fell on September
29th, near Vermelles. Nothing could be more touching than the letters
from officers and men about this brave, sweet-tempered boy. "Poor old
regiment!" writes the Colonel to the lad's father--"we were badly knocked
about, and I brought out only 3 officers and 375 men, but they did
magnificently, and it was thanks to officers like