While in Belgium they burn houses and torture civilians, on the pretext that the latter have fired on them, they congratulate the Hungarian peasants who took up arms to defend their country against the Russian invader. The contrast here is so obvious that it even struck one German--Herr Maximilian Harden. In an article in _Jingoism, a Disease of the Mind_, he reproaches his compatriots with having two weights and two measures (published in _Vorwärts_, August 1914). They push their effrontery to the point of photographing their own francs-tireurs, so that no doubt may be left in our minds. The _Berl. Ill. Zeit._ of the 16th March, 1915 (p. 261), gives a photograph "from the theatre of the war in the Carpathians"--"Ruthenian Peasant employed in the Austro-Hungarian Army to guard roads and telegraph-lines." The peasant, without uniform, carries a rifle. Lastly, let us cite a case in which cynicism is allied to pedantry. On the calcined walls of the Hôtel de Ville of Dinant (burned on the 23rd and 24th August, 1914) is a chronogram. The letters are cut in a slab of marble let into the wall facing the Meuse. The fire had rendered the inscription illegible, but the commandant of the town, in March 1915, had the slab re-painted black and the letters re-gilt. This is the inscription:-- PAX ET SALVS NEVTRA LITATEM SERVANT IBVS DETVR. ("May peace and security be granted to those who preserve neutrality.") (1637.) Herr Otto Eduard Schmidt, returning from the French front by way of Dinant, was struck by this inscription. "I could not learn for certain," he says, "by questioning passing soldiers of the Landsturm, whether the inscription had lately been placed there or had merely been re-gilt. But in any case, I should regard it an insult to German authority, and I am astonished that this insult should be tolerated" (O. E. Schmidt, _Eine Fahrt zu den Sachsen an die Front_, p. 131). What would Herr Schmidt say if he knew that it was his own countrymen who, in a fit of shameless cynicism, caused this inscription to be renovated? _Surrender of the Critical Spirit. Refusal to Examine the Accusations of Cruelty._ Painfully moved by the horrors committed in Belgium, M. Charles Magnet, the National Grand Master of Belgian Freemasonry, wrote on the 9th September to nine German lodges, requesting them to institute, by common consent, an inquiry into the facts. Since the Germans denied the atrocities of which their troops were accused, and, on the other hand, were accusing the Belgians of maltreating the wounded, such an inquiry could only have a happy result. Two lodges only replied. "The request is superfluous; this inquiry would be an insult to our army," replied the Darmstadt lodge. "Our troops are not ill-conducted; it would even be dangerous to recommend them to display sensibility and kindness," replied the Bayreuth lodge.