"_it is with my consent that the General in command has burned down the place [Andenne] and shot about 100 inhabitants._" It was the same chivalrous and humane General who posted a proclamation at Namur on August 25th as follows: "Before 4 o'clock all Belgian and French soldiers are to be delivered up as prisoners of war. Citizens who do not obey this will be condemned to hard labor for life in Germany. At 4 o'clock a rigorous inspection of all houses will be made. _Every soldier found will be shot._ * * * _The streets will be held by German guards, who will hold ten hostages for each street. These hostages will be shot if there is any trouble in that street._ * * * A crime against the German Army will compromise the existence of the whole town of Namur _and every one in it_." Did not Field Marshal von der Goltz issue a proclamation in Brussels, on October 5th, stating that, if any individual disturbed the telegraphic or railway communications, all the inhabitants would be "_punished without pity, the innocent suffering with the guilty_"? Individual guilt being thus a matter of minor importance, Dr. Zimmermann had no occasion on the accepted theory of Prussian militarism to justify the secret trial and midnight execution of Edith Cavell. Indeed, he freely intimates that his Government will not spare women, no matter how high and noble the motive may have been which inspires any infraction of military law, and to this sweeping statement he makes but one exception, namely, that women "in a delicate condition may not be executed." But why the exception? If it be permitted to destroy one life for the welfare of the military administration of Belgium, why stop at two? If the innocent living are to be sacrificed, why spare the unborn? The exception itself shows that the rigor of military law must have some limitation, and that its iron rigor must be softened by a discretion dictated by such considerations of chivalry and magnanimity as have hitherto been observed by all civilized nations. If the victim of yesterday had been an "expectant mother," Dr. Zimmermann suggests that her judges and executioners would have spared her, but no such exception can be found in the Prussian military code. "It is not so nominated in the bond," and the Under Secretary's recognition of one exception, based upon considerations of humanity and not the letter of the military code, destroys the whole fabric of his case, _for it clearly shows that there was a power of discretion which von Bissing could have exercised, if he had so elected_.