The incidents have been marked by singularly ineffective shooting on both sides. The aëroplanes have thrown a dozen bombs; they have broken windows and roof slates and have killed one old woman. But this has been, as far as I know, the only casualty. On the other hand, the Taubes likewise have escaped unwrecked, in spite of the fact that enough ammunition has been expended against them to have smashed all the aëroplanes in the world. The psychological effect on the Parisians has been immense. For two weeks now, I have been entirely ready to start on my first tour of the detention camps. The need has seemed so pressing that I have been prepared to start immediately on the receipt of permission from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Herrick rightly refuses to allow me to start without this permission. The reason for the delay seems to be that France insists that she will accord us only those privileges with regard to her German prisoners that the German government gives to the Spanish Embassy in Berlin with regard to the French prisoners in Germany. The hitch is that each takes exactly the same ground, so neither side does anything definite. Such is European "diplomacy." The onus of the prisoners' condition cannot be said to rest upon our shoulders. Mr. Herrick or Mr. Bliss has made _démarches_ in the matter almost every day. Diplomacy is a trade which I find extremely hard to learn. Its principal rule seems to be never to do anything that you can possibly avoid. Such principles naturally give rise to a great deal of futile routine. When a diplomat must act, he methodically follows a well-trodden and known-to-be-safe path; when he is forced to take a new direction he invariably makes some superior take the responsibility. I know that on one occasion a trivial question was asked of a Jäger at the door of a European _Chancellerie_; it was passed through eight people of increasing rank and finally reached the ruler of a great nation. I wonder if the applicant was kept waiting at the door by the Jäger during the months necessary for the working out of the process.