ring Friday night and
Saturday morning, with the news of the awful massacre in the northern
entrenchments, had combined to extinguish the last vestige of desire
for resistance which remained in London.

Almost all the people with money had left the capital. Those
remaining--the poor, the refugees from northward, irresponsibles, people
without a stake of any kind; these desired but the one thing: food and
safety. The German Commander-in-Chief was wise. He knew that if time had
been allowed, resistance would have been organized, even though the
British regular Army had, by continuous reductions in the name of
"economy," practically ceased to exist as a striking force. And
therefore time was the one thing he had been most determined to deny
England.

It is said that fatigue killed more German soldiers than fell to British
bullets; and the fact may well be believed when we consider the
herculean task General von Fuechter had accomplished in one week. His
plan of campaign was to strike his hardest, and to keep on striking his
hardest, without pause, till he had the British Government on its knees
before him; till he had the British public--maddened by sudden fear, and
the panic which blows of this sort must bring to a people with no
defensive organization, and no disciplinary training--cowed and crying
for quarter.

The German Commander has been called inhuman, a monster, a creature
without bowels. All that is really of small importance. He was a soldier
who carried out orders. His orders were ruthless orders. The instrument
he used was a very perfect one. He carried out his orders with the
utmost precision and thoroughness; and his method was the surest,
quickest, and, perhaps, the only way of taking possession of England.

At noon precisely, the Lord Mayor of London was brought before the
German Commander-in-Chief in the audience chamber of the Mansion House,
and formally placed under arrest. A triple cordon of sentries and two
machine-gun parties were placed in charge of the Bank of England, and
quarters were allotted for two German regiments in the immediate
vicinity. Two machine-guns were brought into position in front of the
Stock Exchange, and all avenues leading from the heart of the City were
occupied by mixed details of cavalry and infantry, each party having one
machine-gun.

My acquaintance, Wardle, of the _Sunday News_, was in the audience
chamber of the Mansion House at this time, and he says that he neve