r. What is to be
said, then, for the continual use of bombs by the Germans which have
usually been wasted in the destruction of cats or dogs, but which have
occasionally torn to pieces some woman or child? If bombs were dropped
on the forts of Paris as part of a scheme for reducing the place, then
nothing could be said in objection, but how are we to describe the
action of men who fly over a crowded city dropping bombs promiscuously
which can have no military effect whatever, and are entirely aimed at
the destruction of innocent civilians? These men have been obliging
enough to drop their cards as well as their bombs on several occasions.
I see no reason why these should not be used in evidence against them,
or why they should not be hanged as murderers when they fall into the
hands of the Allies. The policy is idiotic from a military point of
view; one could conceive nothing which would stimulate and harden
national resistance more surely than such petty irritations. But it is
a murderous innovation in the laws of war, and unless it is sternly
repressed it will establish a most sinister precedent for the future.

As to the treatment of Belgium, what has it been but murder, murder all
the way? From the first days of Vise, when it was officially stated that
an example of "frightfulness" was desired, until the present moment,
when the terrified population has rushed from the country and thrown
itself upon the charity and protection of its neighbors, there has been
no break in the record. Compare the story with that of the occupation of
the South of France by Wellington in 1813, when no one was injured,
nothing was taken without full payment, and the villagers fraternized
with the troops. What a relapse of civilization is here! From Vise to
Louvain, Louvain to Aerschot, Aerschot to Malines and Termonde, the
policy of murder never fails.

It is said that more civilians than soldiers have fallen in Belgium.
Peruse the horrible accounts taken by the Belgian Commission, who took
evidence in the most careful and conscientious fashion. Study the
accounts of that dreadful night in Louvain which can only be equaled by
the Spanish Fury of Antwerp. Read the account of the wife of the
Burgomaster of Aerschot, with its heartrending description of how her
lame son, aged sixteen, was kicked along to his death by an aide de
camp. It is all so vile, so brutally murderous that one can hardly
realize that one is reading the incidents of a