The Wandering Jew of the Middle Age was a figure sympathetically conceived. He had still to pay the price in his tortured body, but his soul was at rest, for he had repented his folly. Raemaekers in his cartoon follows the conception of Gustave Dore rather than that of the old fabulists. The modern Ahasuerus has no surety of an eventual peace. We have seen the German War Lord flitting hungrily from Lorraine to Poland, from Flanders to Nish, watching the failure of his troops before Nancy and Ypres, inditing grandiose proclamations to Europe, prophesying a peace which never comes. He is a figure worthy of Greek tragedy. The [Greek: hubris] which defied the gods has put him outside the homely consolations of mankind. He has devoted his people to the Dance of Death, and himself, like some new Orestes, can find no solace though he seek it wearily in the four corners of the world. JOHN BUCHAN. [Illustration: AHASUERUS RETURNS "Once I drove the Christ out of my door, now I am doomed to walk from the Northern Seas to the Southern, from the Western shores to the Eastern mountains, asking for Peace, and none will give it to me."--From the Legend of the "Wandering Jew"] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- OUR CANDID FRIEND The position of Holland and Denmark is one of excruciating anxiety to the citizens of those countries. They know that the Allies are fighting the battle of their own political existence, but they are so hypnotized with well-founded terror of the implacable tyrant on their flank that they are not only bound to neutrality, but are afraid to express their sympathies too plainly. Dutch editors have been admonished and punished under pressure from Berlin; the brilliant artist of these cartoons is in danger on his native soil. A leading German newspaper has lately announced that "we will make Holland pay with interest for these insults after the war." A German victory would inevitably be followed in a few years by the disappearance from the map of this gallant and interesting little nation, our plucky rival in time past, our honoured friend to-day. No nation has established a stronger claim to maintain its independence, whether we consider the heroic and successful struggles of the Dutch for religious and political liberty, their triumphs in discovery, colonization, and naval warfare, their unique contributions to art, or the manly and vigorous character of their people. It is needless to say that we have no designs upon any Dutch colony! THE DEAN OF ST. PAUL'S. [Illustration: OUR CANDID FRIEND GERMANY, TO HOLLAND: "I shall have to swallow you up, if only to prevent those English taking your colonies."] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- PEACE AND INTERVENTION