Unhappily, and in flat contradiction to that “humane” spirit, which we so frequently profess, treachery strikes the dominant note in modern warfare, and this is one of the chief reasons why War should no longer be permitted. The new long-range quick-firing gun is as dastardly as it is powerful, for surely to shoot down men miles away who cannot see their enemies is as reprehensible and cowardly as to stab a man in the back unawares. Another instrument of treachery is the submarine--a truly devilish invention devised for the avowed object of destroying war-vessels by murderous action from the hidden depths of the sea. No one ever seems to pause and consider what an amount of fiendish cunning in the mind of man has evolved the construction of this deadly engine of warfare--still less does the question ever appear to suggest itself as to whether such a perfidious way of compassing slaughter is humane (we will not shame the word “Christian”) or truly “civilised.” If we refer back to what we are pleased to call the “dark ages” or ages of barbarism, we read much concerning “instruments of torture,” such as the rack, the thumb-screw, and other inventions brutally designed by man to injure his fellow-man, but these things for the most part avowed their murderous intention in open daylight--the doomed creatures knew what they had to expect and prepared to die accordingly. But modern science has sharpened our wits to a more merciless edge--we are cunning enough to hide ourselves and our instruments of death from our intended victims after the fashion of assassins lurking in ambush--therefore by the very law of compensation it is scarcely to be wondered at that we are sometimes “hoist with our own petard,” of which the many appalling submarine fatalities are proof and warning. And now, not satisfied with attack from the secret depths of the ocean, Zeppelins and aeroplanes shower bombs upon open towns and innocent civilians, so that even the hitherto neutral skies will be made spaces of vantage for pitiless assault. All these “civilised” inventions for the practice of barbarity ought to give so-called “Christian” empires food for serious thought--yet, strange to say, it would seem that every new and more murderous weapon for warfare is hailed with columns of praise in the press, and such general acclamation as may truly be called “savage”--as no “civilised” community educated according to all that we boast of in our advanced state of progress, could or _would_ rejoice over the construction of mere killing-machines for the slaughter of their fellow-creatures! Therefore, it may be asked: Are we truly “civilised” or is it all a Sham? Are we really humane?--or as bloodthirsty as when, in our aboriginal savagery, we cracked the skulls of our enemies open with flint axes?