Gand 100,000 marks Ledebourg 5,000 " Destelbergen 30,000 " Schellebelle 50,000 " Sweveghem 4,900 " Winckel Sainte-Croix 3,000 " Wachtebeke 3,000 " _(N.R.C._, 30th January, 1915, evening edition.) _Fines for "Attacks by Francs-tireurs."_ We may observe, in passing, that in September 1914 the accusation--the accusation, we say, not the offence--of having allowed a telegraph wire to deteriorate was punished, in Brussels, by a stoppage of the telephone service; but in December the Germans preferred to fill their treasury. The same observation is true of Mons and Bilsen; the accusation of "francs-tireurs," which in September 1914 would have ended in a massacre of the inhabitants and the burning of the town, was in October the motive for a tax of 100,000 frs. At that time it no longer seemed essential to terrorize; the Germans no longer required blood, but money. ON BEHALF OF THE GERMAN MILITARY AUTHORITIES. WARNING. The City of Mons has been forced to pay a tax of 100,000 frs. because a private person fired upon a German soldier. (_Posted at Louvain._) And indeed it is money that is demanded everywhere--5,000 frs. from the commune of Grenbergen, near Termonde, because an inhabitant allowed his pigeons to fly. 5,000,000 frs. was required of Brussels because a police agent maltreated a German spy (p. 157). It was with a money fine that Mons was threatened should an Englishman be discovered on its soil (placard posted at Mons, 6th November, 1914), and the city of Mons and the province of Hainaut if any inhabitant retained for his own use any benzine or a motor-bicycle (placard posted at Mons, 6th October, 1914). At Seraing, in February 1915, it was again money that was demanded, because a bomb had burst within the limits of the commune. The more surely to obtain the sum, a few hostages were imprisoned, with the promise that they would be sent to a fortress in Germany if the communal treasury did not pay their ransom; but the hostages themselves advised the commune to refuse. The Germans, fearing to be left in the lurch, reduced their demands by half; finally, having obtained nothing, they released the hostages. Singular justice, to regulate its penalties not by the gravity of the offence, but according to the temper of the victims! We are waiting for the German newspapers to publish a schedule of penalties as affected by the docility of the victims and the season.