ussels for treason have caused a sensation._

What extraordinary moral naivete! How could they appreciate that after
the firing squad had done its work and the body of the woman had been
given hasty burial the victim's virtues would

"plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of her taking off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind."

This happened with incredible rapidity, and the Kaiser made haste to
respite the eight other intended victims--two of them being also
women--and the Berlin Foreign Office also issued to the world its
defense of its action.

It began with an expression of "pity that Miss Cavell had to be
executed," but the sincerity of this pity can be measured by the fact
that concurrently with Dr. Zimmermann's official apology there came from
Berlin an "inspired" supplemental explanation, which sought to
depreciate the character and services of the dead nurse by stating "that
she earned a living by nursing, _charging fees within the means of the
wealthy only_."

The world has an abundant refutation of this cruel and cowardly slur
upon the memory of a dead woman, for one who first hazarded her life and
then gave it freely to save the lives of others--for such was the charge
for which she died--is not a woman to restrict her gracious
ministrations of mercy for mercenary motives.

The Kaiser has been swift to see the deadly injury to his cause of this
latest evidence of military tyranny. Not only has he respited Miss
Cavell's alleged accomplices--as if to say with Macbeth, "thou canst not
say I did it"--but it is said that he has summoned von Bissing and von
der Lancken to explain their actions in the matter, but as the Kaiser is
responsible for the invasion of Belgium and has hitherto condoned its
attendant horrors, he can no more absolve himself from some share of
responsibility than could Macbeth disavow his responsibility for the
deeds of his two hirelings.

_The stain of this murder rests upon Prussian militarism and not upon
the German people_, for it should not be forgotten that possibly the
most chivalrous act which has happened since the beginning of the war,
was the erection by a German community, where a detention camp was
maintained, of a statue to the French and English soldie