Most people who see for the first time the desolation of such buildings as the cathedral cry out angrily upon German vandalism, with the implication that it is because they were fine and stately that the cathedral and the Hôtel de Ville were battered. This is not only unjust, but nonsensical. The German has other things to think of than the deliberate destruction of beautiful buildings because they are beautiful. What he has to consider is their height and their potential usefulness as observation-posts. And this is what he does consider, as we would and do consider such features too. Had we been bombarding Arras, it is the tall and beautiful cathedral that we would have shattered first. You may as logically rail against the Germans for smashing down these potential observation-posts as object to the prosecution of the War on Sunday.... The old warning notices persist, and have been put up more plain and frequent: _Assembly-Point_, indicating the cellars of refuge; warnings against touching unexploded shell; and so forth. The Town Major, the Railhead Ordnance Officer, the Railway Transport Officer, the Railhead Supply Officer, the Railhead Salvage Officer--all are intensely busy, and all well sandbagged. The Salvage officer is beset by his friends for souvenirs. The R.O.O. is beset by the quartermasters of battered battalions for fresh equipment. The R.S.O. is hunted by the hungry. The R.T.O. is at his wits' end to entrain and detrain men and guns--especially men. The town teems with troops. The returning refugees trouble none of these officials. They go to the French Mission for directions as to resettling.