only a sort of accident. Money remains
money, and there are people selling and buying right up to
places where many lives are lost every day. The position is
really almost that described in a _Bystander_ cartoon, depicting
a peasant standing above a line of our trenches amid a hell of
shot and bursting shrapnel, and saying, "Messieurs, I am
desolated to trouble you, but I must request you to fight in my
other field, as I plough this one to-day." By the way, _The
Bystander_ has succeeded, as no other paper save perhaps _Punch_
has done, in catching the atmosphere that exists out here.

I assure you that just behind the firing-line people are minting
money out of our occupation. Not only do they get paid regularly
if British troops are billeted on them, but they can name their
own prices for milk, beer, eggs, etc., and all those other things
that Tommy is anxious for, and for which he can afford to pay. He
is, I think, paid three times as much as either the French or the
Boche soldiers. True, I have met some pitiful cases of
refugeeism, but to a very large number of people in Northern
France the war is nothing but somewhat of a nuisance. Of course,
where they do feel it is in their own terrible casualty lists. I
have known family after family in the little villages who have
lost one or two sons. In many communes one finds that the Mayor
has been killed while serving at the front, and a deputy acts in
his stead. The Mayor of the place where we are now stationed has
three sons fighting, one at Verdun. I had an agreeable chat a few
days back with the local schoolmaster, who was home on short
leave from the trenches.

It is curious that only _The Bystander_ and _Punch_ should have
succeeded in catching the atmosphere of "Somewhere in France."
Many of the war correspondents, brilliantly though they write,
have missed it altogether. John Buchan is not so bad, when he
writes soberly, but he will let his imagination run away with
him. Talking of writers, what a delightful thing was that article
of Zangwill's in the _Daily Chronicle_ on "The Perils of Walking
in War-time"! Its brilliant satire, firm grasp of facts, lively
humour and racy style quite took my fancy.

I have had some interesting chats with some of the old soldiers
in our division a