he War Office to say that the one among
the millions who is dear to you is dead or wounded. Otherwise, it is a
torment of unidentified elements behind a curtain, which is parted for
an announcement of gain or loss, or to give out a list of the fallen.

The world wants to read that Peter Smith led the King's Own
Particular Fusiliers in a charge. It may not know Peter Smith, but his
name and that of his regiment make the information seem definite.
The statement that a well-known millionaire yesterday gave a million
dollars to charity, or that a man in a checked suit swam from the
Battery to Coney Island, is not convincing; nor is the fact that one
private unnamed held back the Germans with bombs in the traverse
of a trench for hours until help came. We at the front, however, do
know the names; we meet the officers and men. Ours is the intimacy
which we may not interpret except in general terms.

Every article, every dispatch, every letter, passes through the
censor's hand. But we are never told what to write. The liberty of the
Press is too old an institution in England for that. Always we may
learn why an excision is made. The purpose is to keep information
from the enemy. It is not like fighting Boers or Filipinos, this war of
walls of men who can turn the smallest bit of information to
advantage.

Intelligence officers speak of their work as piecing together the parts
of a jig-saw puzzle. What seems a most innocent fact by itself may
furnish the bit which gives the figure in the picture its face. It does not
follow because you are an officer that you know what may and what
may not be of service to the enemy.

A former British officer who had become a well-known military critic, in
an account of a visit to the front mentioned having seen a battle from
a certain church tower. Publication of the account was followed by a
tornado of shell-fire that killed and wounded many British soldiers.
Only a staff specialist, trained in intelligence work and in constant
touch with the intelligence department, can be a safe censor. At the
same time, he is the best friend of the correspondent. He knows what
is harmless and what may not be allowed. He wants the Press to
have as much as possible. For the more the public knows about its
soldiers, the better the morale of the people, which reflects itself in the
morale of the army.

The published casualty lists giving the names of officers and men and
their battalions is a means of ca