ere pulled out to determine just how long
the shrieks could be heard, and the uninitiated were preparing to hear
the sound of the explosion itself. The battery chief explained, however,
that this scream was due to the conditions immediately around the muzzle
of the gun, and could not be heard from other points. He invited close
watch of the atmosphere a hundred yards before the gun at the next shot.
Not only could the projectile be seen plainly in the beginning of its
flight, but the waves of billowing air, rushing back to fill the void
left by the discharge and bounding and rebounding in a tempestuous sea
of gas, could be distinctly observed. This airy commotion caused the
sound heard for more than a minute.

*The Slaughter in Alsace*

*By John H. Cox of The London Standard.*

BASLE, Switzerland, Aug. 19.--I have just returned from an inspection of
the scenes of the recent fighting between the French and Germans in the
southern districts of Alsace.

Dispatches from Paris and Berlin describe the engagements between the
frontier and Muelhausen as insignificant encounters between advance
guards. If this be true in a military sense, and the preliminaries of
the war produce the terrible effects I have witnessed, the disastrous
results of the war itself will exceed human comprehension.

As a Swiss subject I was equipped with identification papers and
accompanied by four of my countrymen, all on bicycles.

At the very outset the sight of peasants, men and women, unconcernedly
at work in the fields gathering the harvest, struck me as strange and
unnatural. The men were either old or well advanced in middle age.
Everywhere women, girls, and mere lads were working.

The first sign of war was the demolished villa of a Catholic priest at a
village near Ransbach. This priest had lived there for many years,
engaged in religious work and literary pursuits. After the outbreak of
the war the German authorities jumped at the conclusion that he was an
agent of the French Secret Service and that he had been in the habit of
sending to Belfort information concerning German military movements and
German measures for defense--very often by means of carrier pigeons.

The Alsatians say that these accusations were utterly unjust; but last
week a military party raided the priest's house, dragged him from his
study, placed him against his own garden wall and shot him summarily as
a traitor and spy. The house was searched from top t