The fire in Louvain began a little above the American College, and the city is entirely destroyed, with the exception of the Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) and the depot. Today the fire continued, and the Germans--far from trying to stop it--seem rather to maintain it by throwing straw into the fire, as I have myself seen in the streets behind the Hotel de Ville. The cathedral and the theatres have been destroyed and have fallen in, also the library. The town resembles an old city in ruins, in the midst of which drunken soldiers are circulating, carrying bottles of wine and liquor; the officers themselves being installed in armchairs, sitting around tables and drinking like their own men. In the streets dead horses are decaying, horses which are already inflated, and the smell of the fire and of the decaying animals is such that it has followed me for a long time." The commission up to this writing has been unable to obtain any information regarding the fate of the Burgomaster of Louvain, nor regarding the prominent persons taken for hostages. Conclusions of the Commission. By facts which have thus far been brought to its attention, the commission reaches the following conclusions: In this war, German occupation of territory is systematically followed by (and is at times preceded by and accompanied by) acts of violence against the civil population, which acts of violence are contrary to the conventional laws of war and to the most elementary principles of humanity. The procedure of the Germans is everywhere the same. They advance along the roads, shooting inoffensive passersby, particularly cyclists and even peasants occupied in the fields which the Germans traverse. In the towns and villages where they stop, the Germans first of all requisition victuals and drinks which they consume to the point of drunkenness; then they begin to shoot wildly, sometimes from the interior of empty houses, declaring that the inhabitants have fired the shots. It is then that the firing scenes begin, and murder and especially pillage accompanied by acts of cold cruelty set in, acts which respect neither sex nor age. Even where they claim to know the perpetrator of the deeds which they allege, they do not content themselves with executing the culprits summarily, but take advantage of the occasions to decimate the population, to pillage all the inhabitants, and to set fire to them. After a first massacre, somewhat at random, they shut the men into the church of the town and order all women to go back to the houses and leave the doors open during the night.