Captain Carl Wolpert was in charge of this work. He was the superintendent of the Atlas Line, a subsidiary of the Hamburg-American Steamship Company, and an officer of the German Naval Reserve. Armed by Scheele with the “cigars,” by Schimmel with the list of ships, and by Von Rintelen with unlimited money, Wolpert chose a group of trusted lieutenants from among the Germans in New York. These men frequented the water-front and the neighbouring saloons, where they sought out stevedores, who could be bribed to place the bombs where they were directed. Fortunately for the lives of seamen and for the property of the Allies, many of these men took the German money but threw the bombs into the bay. Enough, however, earned their blood money so that many ships were set afire on their voyage across the Atlantic, some of them burning to the water’s edge, most of them being greatly damaged, the total loss figuring well up in the millions of dollars. Many a captain in mid-ocean fought the flames on his vessel, from the second or third day of his voyage, all the way into port. A fire would break out in his bunker coal; it might be quenched, only to break out in the cargo two days later, and perhaps a day after that start up again in the coal. This fiendish work was done in cold blood, do not forget, at the command of the Imperial German Government, at its expense, under the direction of one of its most highly placed aristocrats, by one of Germany’s greatest chemists, with the coöperation of officers of the German Navy and with the cognizance of the German Ambassador to our friendly Government. Here was no passion of battle, no extemporized savagery of revenge. It was a calculated atrocity, perpetrated by the highest authorities of one of the most “civilized” of the “Christian” nations, using the most technical processes of one of the most complex arts of modern life. The magic by which the slimy refuse of burning coal is transmuted into dyes which give to paints and fabrics the splendour of the dawn and the beauty of the rose, was here debased to the infamous uses of treachery and murder. THE END [Illustration] THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text, and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained. For example, courtroom, court-room; boarding-house, boarding house; disproven; gasolene; whilom; plottings; cantine; extinguishment.