Fourthly, and finally, like all the worst Prussian crimes, it was a stupid blunder. Prussia has paid already a very high price for any advantage she may have gained from the mutinous and unwilling labour of these men, and for the swelling of her official return for the edification of her own people and of neutrals by the inclusion of "prisoners of war" of this description. To-day, when she knows not where to turn for men, she is obliged to keep a huge garrison tied up in Belgium to guard her line of retreat. And when the retreat itself comes, the price will rise even higher, and the nemesis will be both just and terrible. CECIL CHESTERTON. [Illustration: HUSBANDS AND FATHERS Belgian workmen were forcibly deported to Germany.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE GERMAN BAND The German Band, as we know it in this country, has never been noted for harmonious music. Blatancy, stridency, false notes, and persistency after the coppers, have been its chief characteristics. And the same things prevail when it is at home. Never since the world began has there been such a campaign of barefaced humbug and lying as that organized by William, Hindenburg, Hollweg and Co. for the deceiving and fleecing of the much-tried countries temporarily under their sway. But the money had to be got in by hook or by crook, and by hook and by crook and in every nefarious way they have milked their unfortunate peoples dry. But there is another side to all this. In time, the veil of lies and false intelligence of victories in the North Sea, and at Verdun, and, indeed, wherever Germany has fought and failed, will be rent by the spear of Truth. Then will come the _debacle_. And then, unless every scrap of grit and backbone has been Prussianized out of the Teuton, the revulsion of feeling will sweep the oppressors out of existence; and Germany, released from the strangle-hold, may rise once more to take the place among the civilized nations of the world which, by her foul doings of the last two years, she has deliberately forfeited. JOHN OXENHAM. [Illustration: WAR LOAN MUSIC "Was blazen die Trompeten Moneten heraus?"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ARCADES AMBO Looking at this cartoon one can understand why Raemaekers is not _persona grata_ in the Happy Fatherland. With half a dozen touches he has changed Satan from the magnificent Prince of Evil whom Gustave Dore portrayed into a--Hun. Henceforth we shall envisage Satan as a Hun, talking the obscene tongue--now almost the universal language in Hades--and hailed by right-thinking Huns as the All Highest War Lord. Willy senior must be jealous.