e a system of hieroglyphics which
I write in on the lower right-hand corner of the police papers which
every foreigner must at all times carry with him for identification.
There is also an interpreter for those rare comers who speak neither
French nor English. By this system I have managed to examine as many
as one hundred and thirty-five cases in an hour, and once as high a
number as seven hundred in a single day.

At the beginning of the war there were probably at least thirty
thousand Germans and Austrians in or near Paris who became wards of
the American Embassy when the affairs of the German and Austrian
Embassies were turned over to us, all of them needing to be furnished
with proper police papers and to be provided with a refuge until such
time as they are shipped to detention camps in the south of France.

* * * * *

_Sunday, August 23d._ Here in Paris, extraordinary as it may seem, we
have had no real news of the progress of the war. The Official
Communiques carry to a fine point the art of saying nothing of any
importance. The newspapers are so strictly censored that they are
permitted to publish little except these _communiques_ or editorials
based upon them. Letters and papers from America really give us the
first accounts of events which are happening at our very gates. We
know by rumor that there has been heavy fighting somewhere and
somewhen. Many German prisoners are being taken around Paris southward
to the detention camps which I hope soon to visit, and the flags of
three German regiments have been brought to Paris and exhibited with
considerable ceremony. This should indicate that battles favorable to
the French have been fought, since a German regiment numbers three
thousand men and would defend its flag to the last.

Of late one sees everywhere numbers of women in mourning, increasing
so rapidly as to attract the attention of even the least observing.
Paris still maintains a strange calm. The stillness of the city is
positively oppressive. Even the newsboys drag slowly along calling in
a disheartened voice their wares which no longer contain any news and
which, in consequence, find few buyers.

The people seem to realize from the very lack of news that this is to
be a long and terrible war and that any decisive result cannot be at
present expected.

Letters are constantly arriving at the Embassy, forwarded to us with
great care by French soldiers who have found