nd their anger has risen so high that they even
propose to make the acquirer of these goods suffer very bitterly indeed.
What plea he will then raise under discomforts more serious than those
he has caused to the peasants of Flanders and of Poland, and how those
pleas will affect his neutral audience, will have no effect whatever on
the result of the war, or on his own unpleasing fate. Those appeals will
have a certain interest, however, because we know from the past that the
German mind is unstable. Within fifteen short months it proposed the
annihilation of the French armies and the occupation of Paris. It
failed. It next offered terms upon suffering defeat. It withdrew them.
It next made certain at least of a conquest of Russia, failed again,
offered terms again, withdrew them again; was directed to the blockading
of England, failed; thought Egypt better, and then changed its mind. It
was but yesterday in the mood that this cartoon suggests; to-morrow its
mood will have utterly changed again, probably to a whine, perhaps to a
scream. Such instability is rare in the history of nations which purpose
a conquest of others, and it is a very poor furniture for the mind.

HILAIRE BELLOC.

[Illustration: THE GERMAN: "If you will let me keep what I have, I will
let _you_ go."]

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THE WOLF TRAP

The wolf is not perhaps the beast by which one would most wish one's
country to be represented. But the wolf, like every animal when
defending its dearest, and when assailed with treachery, has its
nobility. And the Roman she-wolf certainly has had in all ages her
dignity and her force.

"Thy nurse will hear no master,
Thy nurse will bear no load,
And woe to them that spear her,
And woe to them that goad.
When all the pack loud baying
Her bloody lair surrounds,
She dies in silence biting hard
Amidst the dying hounds."

Italy certainly calls not only for our sympathy, but for our admiration.
She has had a very difficult course to steer. The ally for so long of
Germany and Austria, if owing them less and less as time went on, it was
difficult for her to break with them. But the day came when she had to
break with them, and once again "act for herself." She told them a year
ago she would be a party to no aggressive or selfish war, she would be
no bully's accomplice. She "denounced"--it is a good