Science, although she is continually placing man in possession of weapons more terrible and more destructive than those of the previous generation, really acts for the good of humanity at large, who owe a debt of gratitude to the mechanical geniuses who have evolved modes of warfare which enable war to be waged with as little unpleasantness as possible to the peaceful populations that have no concern with it. In one respect at least modern warfare is certainly more humane than that of olden times, and this is in the treatment of the wounded and the captured. In ancient warfare the fate of the captive was death or slavery, and in early battles no quarter was given, except to personages of great distinction, and the object of both sides was to slay as many of their opponents as possible, and as surrender only made the prisoner the perquisite of his captor, the fighting was both bloody and fierce. Even as late as 1780 a prisoner was still viewed as the property of the victor, and there was a regular scale or tariff of payments. One instance culled from an account of a battle between Christians and Turks, written by Geoffrey de Vinesauf, must suffice. “Drawing the hostile galley with them to the shore the victors exposed it to be destroyed by our people of both sexes who met it on land. Then our women seized and dragged the Turks by the hair, beheading them and treating them with every indignity and savagely stabbing them, and the weaker their hands so much the more protracted were the pains of death to the vanquished, for they cut off their heads not with swords but with knives.” Dr. Macdonell has pointed out that the only notable survival of barbarism in respect to captives was the rule—abrogated apparently in some countries but retained by us for reasons never satisfactorily explained—that the crews of pirate vessels captured at sea were treated as prisoners of war. In the next great fight on the seas, if a submarine boat should be hit by the quick-firing guns of a battleship she is endeavouring to destroy, her crew, provided they are not sunk like rats in a trap, will be picked up by the ironclad’s boats and kept as prisoners of war till hostilities are at an end. We are reminded of some lines in Mr. Kipling’s poem, “Kitchener’s School”— “They terribly carpet the earth with dead, and before their cannon cool They walk unarmed by twos and threes and call the living to school.” Those who argue in favour of the suppression of under-water warfare have pointed out that whereas the battleship can save the crew of the torpedo vessel, the latter owing to her small size can only steam away, sending the big ship to the bottom, and leave the unfortunate crew to drown or save themselves as best they can, which, with shell and shot flying about, would not be easy. A way out of the difficulty has not been found yet.