The Prussian military system assumes the former as certain, and is well skilled in the way. But there is the latter way, too, which Prussia never knew and never takes into account as a possibility; and men as a whole prefer the way to good before the way to evil, when both are fully explained and made clear. This saves men, and ruins Prussia. WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY. [Illustration: BLUEBEARD'S CHAMBER The horrors perpetrated by the Germans were brought to light by the Belgian Committee of Enquiry.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- THE RAID The seaman of history is a chivalrous and romantic figure, a gallant and relentless fighter, a generous and a tender conqueror. In Codrington's first letter to his wife after the battle of Trafalgar, he tells her to send L100 to one of the French captains who goes to England from the battle as a prisoner of war. The British and French navies cherish a hundred memories of acts like these. If the German navy survives the war what memories will it have? It must search the gaols for the exemplars in peace of the acts that win them the Iron Cross in war. Note in this drawing that the types selected are not in themselves base units of humanity. They have been made so by the beastly crimes superior orders have forced them to commit. But even this has not brought them so low but they wonder at the topsy-turvydom of war that brings them honour where poor Black Mary only got her deserts in gaol. The crimes of the higher command have passed in Germany uncondemned and unbanned by cardinals and bishops. But the conscience of Germany cannot be wholly dead. Nor will six years only be the term of Germany's humiliation and remorse. The spotless white of the naval uniform, sullied and besmirched by those savage cruelties, cannot, any more than the German soul, be brought back "whiter than snow" by any bestowal of the Iron Cross. The effort to cleanse either would "the multitudinous seas incarnadine." ARTHUR POLLEN. [Illustration: THE RAID "Do you remember Black Mary of Hamburg?" "Aye, well." "She got six years for killing a child, whilst we get the Iron Cross for killing twenty at Hartlepool."] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- BETTER A LIVING DOG THAN A DEAD LION Here is the grim choice of alternatives presented to other nations by the creed of _Deutschland ueber Alles_--the cost of resistance and the reward of submission. On one side lies the man who has fought a good fight "for Freedom." He has lost his life but won an immortal memory inscribed upon the cross. The other has saved his life, and lo! it is a "dog's life." He is not even a well-treated dog. Harnessed, muzzled, chained, he crawls abjectly on hands and knees and drags painfully along the road, not only the cart, but his heavy master too.