pted our cables, censored them, and three days later told us, if
we still wished, we could forward them. But only from Holland. By this
they accomplished three things: they learned what we were writing
about them, for three days prevented any news from leaving the city,
and offered us an inducement to visit Holland, so getting rid of us.

The despatches of those diplomats who still remained in Brussels
were treated in the same manner. With the most cheerful
complacency the military authorities blue-pencilled their despatches
to their governments. When the diplomats learned of this, with their
code cables they sent open cables stating that their confidential
despatches were being censored and delayed. They still were
delayed. To get any message out of Brussels it was necessary to use
an automobile, and nearly every automobile had taken itself off to
Antwerp. If a motor-car appeared it was at once commandeered. This
was true also of horses and bicycles. All over Brussels you saw
delivery wagons, private carriages, market carts with the shafts empty
and the horse and harness gone. After three days a German soldier
who did not own a bicycle was poor indeed.

Requisitions were given for these machines, stating they would be
returned after the war, by which time they will be ready for the scrap-
heap. Any one on a bicycle outside the city was arrested, so the only
way to get messages through was by going on foot to Ostend or
Holland, or by an automobile for which the German authorities
had given a special pass. As no one knew when one of these
automobiles might start, we carried always with us our cables and
letters, and intrusted them to any stranger who was trying to run the
lines.

No one wished to carry our despatches, as he feared they might
contain something unfavorable to the Germans, which, if he were
arrested and the cables read, might bring him into greater trouble.
Money for himself was no inducement. But I found if I gave money for
the Red Cross no one would refuse it, or to carry the messages.

Three out of four times the stranger would be arrested and ordered
back to Brussels, and our despatches, with their news value
departed, would be returned.

An account of the Germans entering Brussels I sent by an English
boy named Dalton, who, after being turned back three times, got
through by night, and when he arrived in England his adventures
were published in all the London papers. They were so thrilling that