Orders have been issued to permit us free use of the telephone and telegraph, although they have been cut for everybody else. Yesterday afternoon I talked with the Consulates at Ghent and Antwerp. They were both having their troubles with Germans who wanted to get out of the country. I told them to send everybody up here and let them report at their own consulate, where they will be looked after. The Government is taking no chances of having trouble because of the doings of francs-tireurs. The Minister of the Interior sent out, on the 4th, a circular to every one of the 2,700 communes in the country to be posted everywhere. The circular points out in simple and emphatic terms the duty of civilians to refrain from hostile acts and makes it clear that civilians might be executed for such acts. Aside from this, every newspaper in the country has printed the following notice signed by the Minister of the Interior: TO CIVILIANS The Minister of the Interior advises civilians, in case the enemy should show himself in their district: Not to fight; To utter no insulting or threatening words; To remain within their houses and close the windows, so that it will be impossible to allege that there has been any provocation; To evacuate any houses or small village which may be occupied by soldiers in order to defend themselves, so that it cannot be alleged that civilians have fired; An act of violence committed by a single civilian would be a crime for which the law provides arrest and punishment. It is all the more reprehensible in that it might serve as a pretext for measures of repression resulting in bloodshed and pillage or the massacre of the innocent population with women and children. In the course of the afternoon we got our telegrams telling of the appropriation by Congress of two and a half millions for the relief of Americans in Europe, and the despatch of the _Tennessee_ with the money on board. Now all hands want some of the money and a cabin on the _Tennessee_ to go home in.