a crow could not live on it. A sparrow could not have existed in
many parts of Belgium.

At the same time it is true that because of the tortures endured by the
Belgian people, because of the pain and horror of the war of invasion,
much of it unavoidable, the American public, because its sentiment is so
strongly anti-German, has been willing to believe anything of the race
against whom runs its prejudice. Truly remarkable is the rapidity with
which atrocity stories have been created and the relish with which they
are swallowed by drawing-room gossips. Those who have seen the war do
not find it necessary to talk about what does not exist. Mr. Arthur
Ruhl, who has seen and carefully studied all sides of the war, applies
the term "nursery tale" to the average atrocity story. Mr. Irvin Cobb,
John T. McCutcheon, and others who have been on the ground also took
them with a grain of salt. Curiously enough, the closer one got to the
actual fight, the less bitter was the feeling between participants, the
greater their respect for one another, and the less credulous their
belief in the enemy's barbarity.

An American who was recently discharged from seven months' service with
the British army tells me that during this time the only knowledge he
had of personal atrocities was through the British and French
newspapers. And there are well-known stories of opposing trenches so
closely situated that the soldiers taught each other their respective
national airs, and the choruses of their camp tunes.

To return to another form of alleged outrage, we have the ancient
argument on the case of Rheims.

An interesting contribution to the testimony has been given by Cyril
Brown, now special correspondent of the New York Times in Berlin. Brown
made his way to the German army lines before Rheims, where, among
others, he interviewed First Lieutenant Wengler, of the Heavy Artillery,
commander of a battery which shelled the church spire, but known among
his comrades as "the little friend of the Rheims Cathedral." According
to Lieutenant Wengler two shots only struck the church spire (one from a
fifteen centimeter howitzer, another from a twenty-one centimeter
mortar) and this after French observers had used the tower for five days
between September thirteenth and eighteenth. So sparing was this young
"barbarian," in spite of provocative fire obviously directed from the
French cathedral, that "the friend of the Rheims Cathedral" stuck to