All the petrol left in the country was seized by the Government for the use of military motor-cars, aeroplanes, and Zeppelins. Lately the rather serious situation was cleverly dealt with by extracting from coal in a new, cheap and quick way a liquid called benzol, which is a fairly good substitute for petrol, but which smells horribly when used and requires a lot of work to keep the engines clean. The coal from which benzol has been extracted is converted into coke, and now German railways, works, and private householders are using solely this kind of fuel. The supply of coal is not plentiful, but up to now sufficient, thanks to the strict economy observed by the German people. Berlin street illumination has been very much reduced on this account, while in some other German towns it has been completely suppressed. The number of temporary hospitals has increased enormously. I counted more than thirty houses in Unter den Linden alone over which the Red Cross flag flew. These house hospitals depend partly on the large hospitals for support, and are partly kept up by private charity. As most of the trained nurses are at the front, there is generally only an old nurse as matron, and under her command a number of ladies do all the work without the help of servants. The large hospitals have no more room for new beds. Doctors are very scarce, and those left seem to be working very hard. Owing to the German habit of keeping ambulances right in the firing line the losses amongst doctors have been enormous, and fresh ones are continually required for active service. I had occasion to talk to a doctor who was just back from the front for the purpose of organising a new Red Cross column for work in Poland. "We try to operate as little as possible," he said. "During the last two months we have not made a single amputation, as we believe that it is a crime to take even a finger from a man if it is not absolutely indispensable to do so. "The wounded are in enormous numbers, most of them suffering from wounds caused by their being struck by shrapnel or scraps of shell. It is almost impossible to deal with such cases immediately, and we send them back, after temporarily bandaging them, to Germany. During the last fights on the Yser and near Ypres even the rifle wounds were often infected. "The wounded had to lie for hours, and often for days, in the trenches or on the battlefield before they could be removed. "The downpour of shrapnel bullets from the artillery gave us no time to take the wounded to the nearest Red Cross department. In such conditions cases of lock-jaw are fairly common, but luckily up to the time I left the front there were no cases of infectious disease." "It has been said there have been some cases of cholera in your army?"