To this painter the Prussian
ruling power is incapable of understanding what nobility of nature
means. He can practise on and take advantage of the vices and weaknesses
of his enemies; he can buy the services of many among them, and have all
the worser people in his fee as his servants and agents; but he is
always foiled, because he forgets that some men cannot be bought, and
that these men will steel their fellow-countrymen's minds to resist
tyranny to the last. The mass of men can be led either to evil or to
good.

The Prussian military system assumes the former as certain, and is well
skilled in the way. But there is the latter way, too, which Prussia
never knew and never takes into account as a possibility; and men as a
whole prefer the way to good before the way to evil, when both are fully
explained and made clear. This saves men, and ruins Prussia.

WILLIAM MITCHELL RAMSAY.

[Illustration: BLUEBEARD'S CHAMBER

The horrors perpetrated by the Germans were brought to light by the
Belgian Committee of Enquiry.]

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THE RAID

The seaman of history is a chivalrous and romantic figure, a gallant and
relentless fighter, a generous and a tender conqueror. In Codrington's
first letter to his wife after the battle of Trafalgar, he tells her to
send L100 to one of the French captains who goes to England from the
battle as a prisoner of war. The British and French navies cherish a
hundred memories of acts like these. If the German navy survives the war
what memories will it have? It must search the gaols for the exemplars
in peace of the acts that win them the Iron Cross in war.

Note in this drawing that the types selected are not in themselves base
units of humanity. They have been made so by the beastly crimes superior
orders have forced them to commit. But even this has not brought them so
low but they wonder at the topsy-turvydom of war that brings them honour
where poor Black Mary only got her deserts in gaol.

The crimes of the higher command have passed in Germany uncondemned and
unbanned by cardinals and bishops. But the conscience of Germany cannot
be wholly dead. Nor will six years only be the term of Germany's
humiliation and remorse. The spotless white of the naval uniform,
sullied and besmirched by those savage cruelties, cannot, any more than
the German soul, be brought back "whiter th