disturbing to the heads of these wonderful organisations than the
fear of aerial bombs.

On the occasion of my first war-time visit to Essen it would have
been easy to have bombed it. There is an old saying that a
shoemaker's children are the worst shod, and the display of
anti-aircraft guns which has since manifested itself was then
non-existent. The town was ablaze. It is still ablaze, but the
lighting has been cunningly arranged to deceive nocturnal visitors,
and any aeroplanes approaching Essen at a height of twelve or
fifteen thousand feet would find it hard to discover which was
Essen, and which Borbeck, and which was Steele.

Mulheim is easily found, because it is close to the River Ruhr. We
had to halt a long time outside the station of Essen, so great was
the pressure of traffic. The cordon surrounding the entrance to
the city is some distance away, and having passed that safely I had
no fear of being again interrogated.

I told the hotel manager that I was a travelling newspaper
correspondent, and should like to see as many as possible, of the
wonders of his town. After praise of his hostelry, which, as the
sub-manager said, was too good for the Essenites, I set out on my
travels to see the sights of the city, foremost among them being
the regulation statue of William I.

It was easy to find Krupps, for I had only to turn my steps towards
the lurid panorama in the sky. As I came nearer, not only my sense
of sight but my sense of hearing told me that Germany's great
arsenal was throbbing with unwonted life. The crash and din of
mighty steam hammers and giant anvils, the flame and flash of
roaring blast furnaces, the rumbling of great railway trucks
trundling raw and finished products in and out, chimneys of dizzy
height belching forth monster coils of Cimmerian smoke, seem to
transport one from the prosaic valley of the Ruhr into the
deafening realm of Vulcan and Thor. The impression of Krupps by
night is ineffaceable. The very air exudes iron and energy. You
can almost imagine yourself in the midst of a thunderous artillery
duel. You are at any rate in no doubt that the myriad of hands at
work behind those carefully guarded walls are even more vital
factors in the war than the men in the firing line. The blaze and
roar fill one with the overpowering sense of the Kaiser's limitless
resources for war-making. For you must roll Sheffield and
Newcastle-on-Tyne and Barrow-in-Furness into one cla