As neutrals, we were not personally troubled in this respect; but several of our friends were inexplicably arrested and sent to confinement either in Germany or Belgium. The cause of these arrests in many cases was never known, even by those who suffered them, only to be liberated after a term of months or years of cruel confinement in cells. In other instances the cause for arrest was given out with the usual non-appreciation of right—as in the case of Count de ——, a well-known banker of Dinant, who was shot because he declined to yield the savings of working-class Belgians when the contents of his safes were demanded. Three other prominent men were dragged off to Germany, merely because they had raised a fund for some starving labourers, who, having refused to work for the Germans, had no means of support. Numerous incidents of inconceivable brutality, though of character now too commonly known to bear repetition, were related to me by those who endured these punishments. Such was the experience of a Belgian, the Mayor of Haux, who told us verbally how he had been chained to a mitrailleuse and made to go forward before the German troops facing an Allied attack. In regard to the Teutonic hatred for everything English, the following ridiculous instance will show to what extremes German tactlessness attempted to carry its usurped authority. One day a number of Alimentation-Commission men, all Americans, were seated together in a café; and, as all mention of the war was, by their own decision, prohibited, were jovially recounting reminiscences of happier times. Not far from them sat five young officers stiffly upright in gilt-buttoned parade dress and high red collars. They constantly turned their sheared heads to cast severe glances at the merry group who, though noting the angry eyes flashing under pale, knitted brows, paid no attention. Even then, although the Marne had checked their confident and boastful progress, all members of Germany’s army, however young or inexperienced in action, assumed the bombastic manner of world-conquering Napoleons and, as in this case, considered themselves endowed with right to suppress anyone whose behaviour displeased them. Under the very evident irritation of these five fresh products from the great central war-factory, the Americans’ hilarity grew apace; but on account of the Commission they represented, care was taken to avoid the least offensive word or gesture that might excuse interference. Presently one of the Prussians arose—a fat, pale youth, whose bright blue jacket and trousers appeared likely to burst if he took a long breath—and swaggered toward them with important jangle of sword and spurs. “You shall not speak English where officers of the German army are seated!” he ejaculated, through lips pale and quivering with rage. “Indeed? Why not?” inquired one of the party, an athletic creature who could have pounded the little fatty to a pulp.