enormously comic in the vision of these few remaining (for
there are still some few remaining) that approach the wild beast with
soothing words and receive as their only reward a very large bomb
through the roof of their house, or the news that some one dear to them
has been murdered on the high seas. But to those actively suffering in
the struggle the comic element is difficult to seize, and it is replaced
by indignation. This fantastic misconception of the thing that is being
fought is bound to be burned right out by the realities of the enemy
acts in belligerent countries. It will be similarly destroyed--and that
in no very great space of time--in all neutral countries as well.
Prussia will have it so. She is allowing no moral defence to remain for
her future. It is almost as though the men now directing her affairs
lent ear carefully to every word spoken in praise of them abroad, and
met it at once by the tremendous denial of example. It is almost as
though the Prussian felt it a sort of personal insult to receive the
praise of dupes and fools, and perhaps it is.

HILAIRE BELLOC.

[Illustration: IT'S UNBELIEVABLE

DUTCH OFFICER: "How can they have soiled their hands by such
atrocities?"

SHE: "Can they have done it, my dear? German officers are
so nice."]

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KREUZLAND, KREUZLAND UeBER ALLES

This war has produced examples of every kind of misery which human
beings can inflict upon each other, except one. Europe has mercifully
been spared long sieges of populous towns, ending in the surrender of
the starving population. But many towns and villages have been burnt;
and masses of refugees have fled before the invader, knowing too well
the brutal treatment which they had to expect if they remained. Very
many of the unhappy Belgians have taken refuge in Holland; a
considerable number have found an asylum in this country. They are
homeless and ruined; if the war were to end to-morrow, many of them
would not know where to go or how to live. Families have been broken up;
husbands and wives, parents and children, are ignorant of each other's
fate. In this picture we see a crowd of children, herded together like a
flock of sheep, with nobody to take care of them. Their _via dolorosa_
is marked by long rows of crosses on either side, emblems of suffering,
death, and sacrifice. In the distance