To-day I ran across an order from the Governor-General forbidding civilians to ride bicycles. The order concludes as follows: Civilians who, in spite of this, continue to ride bicycles, expose themselves to being shot by German troops. If a cyclist is suspected of planning to damage railroad, telegraph or telephone lines, or of the intention of attacking German troops, he will be shot according to martial law. Apparently it is no longer necessary to go through the forms of proving that the cyclist had any evil intention. The mere suspicion is enough to have him shot. In the course of a visit to General von Luettwitz to-day, one of the colleagues remarked that the Germans _must_ keep the Belgians alive, and could not allow them to starve. Luettwitz was not at all of that mind, for he said with some show of feeling: "The allies are at liberty to feed the Belgians. If they don't, they are responsible for anything that may happen. If there are bread riots, the natural thing would be for us to drive the whole civil population into some restricted area, like the Province of Luxembourg, build a barbed wire fence around them, and leave them to starve in accordance with the policy of their allies." And as the German policy is more or less frankly stated as a determination to wipe out as many of the enemy as possible without regard to what is or has been considered as permissible, it is quite within the realm of possibility that they would be prepared to let the Belgian people starve. In any event, you can't gamble with the lives of seven millions of people when all you have to go on is the belief that Germany will be guided by the dictates of humanity. Fowler was to have left yesterday morning, and had engaged a seat in a new motor that is being run out by way of Maestricht. It was to have called at my house at seven o'clock yesterday morning, and we were up and about bright and early. We waited until a little after nine, when Eugene turned up to say that the chauffeur had been arrested and put in jail for having carried correspondence and having been caught nosing around one of the forts at Liege. The service is now suspended, and we don't see any prospect of his getting off before Friday, when we are sending a courier to the Legation at The Hague. Yesterday afternoon we went up to Antwerp to see how our old motor-car was getting along. It was out of whack, and we were obliged to get another to come back to Brussels. I took the big car and organised an expedition of Monsieur de Leval, Fowler and a German official named Conrad, who went along to help us over the rough places. It is the first time for weeks that the direct route has been feasible.