Now that there are three
thousand Etonians at the front he is beginning to be sorry he spoke. The
Kaiser, by his own confession, is sorry in another way. He has told a
Socialist deputy, "with tears in his eyes," that he was sincerely sorry for
France, which was "the greatest disappointment of his life." Even
crocodiles sometimes speak the truth unwittingly. Meanwhile the Hamburg
_Fremdenblatt_ asserts that, "We Germans would gladly follow the
Kaiser's lead through the very gates of hell, were it necessary." The
qualification is surely superfluous, in the light of the murder of the
heroic English hospital matron, Edith Cavell, at Brussels on October 12.
Her life was one long act of mercy. She died with unshaken fortitude after
the mockery of a trial on a charge of having assisted fugitive British and
Belgian prisoners to escape. But her great offence was that she was
English. The names of her chief assassins are General Baron von Biasing,
the Governor of Brussels, General von Sauberschweig, the Military Governor,
and the Baron von der Lancken, the Head of the Political Department. Many
years will pass before the echoes of that volley fired at dawn in a
Brussels prison yard will die away.
[Illustration: LANDLADY; "'Ere's the Zeppelins, sir!" LODGER: "Right-o! Put
'em down outside."]
A new phase has been reached in the Conscription controversy, and the
burning question appears to be whether the necessary men are to be
compelled to volunteer or persuaded to be compulsorily enrolled.
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