lice the tendons of the wrist so that the noncombatants
should be prevented from holding a gun or using a knife.

Soon after my ship, the Lapland, docked in America, I heard a case of
whose verity, owing to the source from which it came, I had no doubt.
The refugee in question, according to my informant, was an English
nurse, and lay with both wrists cut off at a well-known New York
hospital on Madison Avenue. She had been in Brussels at the time of the
German entry, and, being willing to work for the sake of humanity
wheresoever there were sick to care for, she had nursed wounded German
officers. Eventually, with a handful of English nurses still remaining
in Brussels, she had been deported to Holland, because it was feared
that German secrets were leaking out in letters sent by these English
nurses. This latter part coincided so precisely with the facts which
during my stay in Brussels I had found to be true, that I had no doubt
of the whole business. On recovery the nurse was to exhibit herself and
lecture for Red Cross funds. I was told this in strict confidence and I
was to see and talk to the handless lady on condition that the "story"
should not reach the press. I agreed. But to my bitter disappointment
the ----- Hospital had never heard of the woman. My informant then
confessed that his informant had made a mistake in the name of the
hospital. I offered four persons ten dollars each to trace the matter
to its source, the final result being a telephone call from my informant
saying that an English lawyer now in New York stated that to the best of
his belief there was "some such person in a hospital somewhere in New
Jersey."

Merely for what they may be worth, and not in any sense as conclusive, I
mention the cases which came to my attention. During a month spent in
that part of Belgium where the most savage of the atrocities were
reported,--a month devoted to a diligent search for the truth,--I could
run down only two instances where the facts were proved, and where taken
all in all and looked at from both sides they constituted an atrocity.
I lived in an atmosphere of popular apprehension frequently amounting to
terror. A friend of mine saw children throw up their hands in terror
and fall down on their knees before a squad of German Uhlans who
suddenly dashed into a village near Vilvorde. The incident does not
prove that Uhlans are in the habit of acting atrociously; it does prove
the popular fear o