While the German Press may not be above admitting a shortage of food in Germany, it seriously annoys the Army that the French prisoners or the French in the invaded regions should hear of it. I heard one story of the wife of a French officer in Lille, who was obliged to offer unwilling hospitality to a German Captain, who, in a somewhat clumsy endeavour to be amiable, offered to try to get news of her husband and to convey it to her. Appreciating the seeming friendliness, of the Captain, she confided to him that she had means of communicating with her husband who was on the French Front. The Captain informed against her and the next day she was sent for by the Kommandantur, who imposed a fine of fifty francs upon her for having received a letter from the enemy lines. Taking a one hundred franc note from her bag she placed it on the desk, saying, "M. le Kommandantur, here is the fifty francs fine, and also another fifty francs which I am glad to subscribe for the starving women and children in Berlin." "No one starves in Berlin," replied the Kommandantur. "Oh, yes, they do," replied Madame X., "I know because the Captain who so kindly informed you that I had received a letter from my husband showed me a letter the other day from his wife in which she spoke of the sad condition of the women and children of Germany, who, whilst not starving, were far from happy." Thus she not only had the pleasure of seriously annoying the Kommandantur, but also had a chance to get even with the Captain who had informed against her, and who is no longer in soft quarters in Lille, but paying the penalty of his indiscretion by a sojourn on the Yser. The Bridge At Meaux The Bridge at Meaux, destroyed in the course of the German retreat, has not yet been entirely repaired. Beneath it rushes the Marne and the river sings in triumph, as it passes, that it is carrying away the soil that has been desecrated by the steps of the invader, and that day by day it is washing clean the land of France. In the fields where the corn is standing, the tiny crosses marking the last resting places of the men are entirely hidden, but where the grain has been gathered the graves, stand out distinctly marked not only by a cross, but also by the tall bunches of corn which have been left growing on these small patches of holy ground. It has always been said that France has two harvests each year. Certainly in the fields of the Marne there is not only the harvest of bread; there is also springing up the harvest of security and peace. The peasants as they point out the graves always add: "We of the people know that those men sacrificed their lives that our children might live. Those who have died in vain for an unjust cause may well envy the men of France who have poured out their blood for the benefit of humanity."