The sum was paid. Still the Germans wanted to get hold of the five remaining millions, so a police agent who had shown lack of respect for an officer was condemned to five years' imprisonment, while Brussels was fined five million francs. One might ask whether, if the Germans continue to act in this fashion, the city of Brussels will be forced to pay a fine each time one of its functionaries is guilty of offence: for it is impossible that the city can control all its employés. In this case the German officer who was insulted was in civilian clothes. Now to a complaint of the communal council the Governor had replied, some time previously, that there were no secret agents at work in civilian clothing; so that the police agent could not have known that he was dealing with an officer, since the latter was not in uniform. It may be imagined that lively protests were made, but once more the Germans threatened to assume the direction of the commune if the sum was not paid by the 10th November at latest; so, although the council presented a memorandum on the affair, it was nevertheless forced to pay in order to pursue its mission in peace. (_N.R.C._, 9th November, 1914.) _Exactions of a Non-commissioned Officer._ Fines without rhyme and reason, and exorbitant war contributions have become so normal and so customary that the Germans have finally learned to exploit the situation. The _N.R.C._ for the 21st May, 1915, reported that the Council of War in Coblenz had condemned to eighteen months' imprisonment the non-commissioned officer Garternich, who had demanded from several occupied Belgian communes a war contribution of 3 frs. per head, and had thus acquired, for his own personal profit, a sum of 27,393 frs. Does not this simple fact reveal the habitual squeezing to which our poor country is subjected? Eighteen months' imprisonment for having emptied the communal treasuries already officially despoiled by the authorities--that truly is not much; especially when we compare this sentence with those pronounced upon the communes when a telegraph wire breaks down: the threat of burning a whole neighbourhood or a formidable fine. _Requisitions of Raw Materials and Machinery._