us, who, presuming
too much on his relations with Zeus, was after death afflicted with an
unquenchable thirst amidst flowing fountains and pellucid lakes--like
the lakes of "The Thirst of the Antelope" in the marvellous mirages of
Rajputana and Mesopotamia--that ever elude his anguished approaches; and
with Ixion, the meanest and basest of cheats, and most demoniac of
murderers, whose posthumous punishment was in being stretched, and
broken, and bound, in the figure of the svastika, on a wheel which,
self-moved--like the wheels of the vision of Ezekiel--whirls forevermore
round and round the abyss of the nether world. The moral of these
tortures is that we may well and most wisely leave vengeance to "the
high Gods." They will repay!

GEORGE BIRDWOOD.

[Illustration: SISYPHUS]

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CONCRETE FOUNDATIONS

Nothing has damned the Germans more in the eyes of other nations,
belligerent and neutral alike, and nothing will have a more subtle and
lasting influence on future relations, than the revelation of stealthy
preparation for conquest under a mask of innocent and friendly
intercourse. The whole process of "peaceful penetration," pursued in a
thousand ways with infernal ingenuity and relentless determination, is
an exhibition of systematic treachery such as all the Macchiavellis have
never conceived. Germany has revealed herself as a nation of spies and
assassins. To take advantage of a neighbour's unsuspecting hospitality,
to enter his house with an air of open friendship, in order to stab him
in the back at a convenient moment, is an act of the basest treachery,
denounced by all mankind in all ages. No one would be more shocked by it
in private life than the Germans themselves. But when it is undertaken
methodically on a national scale under the influence of _Deutschland
ueber Alles_, the same conduct becomes ennobled in their eyes, they throw
themselves into it with enthusiasm and lose all sense of honour. Such is
the moral perversion worked by Kultur and the German theory of the
State.

An inevitable consequence is that in future the movements and
proceedings of Germans in other countries will be watched with intense
suspicion, and if Governments do not prevent the sort of thing depicted
by Mr. Raemaekers the people will see to it themselves. The cartoon is
not, of course, intended to reflect