is that of a Catholic priest with nervous prostration." We helped him and he proved to be all right.

A rising comic-opera star, of engaging appearance and manners (American), who was under a temporary financial obscuration because her company in Holland had broken up, came to ask us to assist her in getting to Germany, where she had friends and hoped to find work. We did it with alacrity. Then she wrote asking us to forward certain legal papers in connection with a divorce which she contemplated. We did it. Then she sent us some of her newspaper articles and a lot of clippings from German journals, requesting us to transmit them in the Legation pouch to America. This we politely declined, with the plea of "non possumus". Whereupon she was furious and denounced us to the German authorities and the German-American press.

An American lady whose husband was dying in Hamburg came in desperate distress with her daughter, to beg us to aid them in getting to him. We found the only way that was open, a little-known route through the northeast corner of Holland, procured the necessary permits, and enabled the wife and daughter to reach his bedside before he died.

A poor woman (with a nice little baby), husband, a naturalized American, was "somewhere in Argentina," wanted to go to his family in one of the northwestern States. She had no money. We paid her expenses in The Hague until we could get into communication with the family, and then sent her home rejoicing.

These are a few examples of the ever-recurring humor and pathos which touched our incessant grind of peace work in war times at The Hague. Thousands and thousands of Americans, real or presumptive, passed through the Legation—all sorts and conditions of men, asking for all kinds of things.

Our house was transformed into an Inquiry Office and a Bureau for First Aid to the Injured. There was often a dense throng outside the front door, filling the street and reaching over into the park. Two Dutch boy scouts, capital fellows in khaki, volunteered their assistance in keeping order, and stood guard at the entrance giving out numbered tickets of admission so that the house would not be choked and all the work stopped.

You see, Holland was the narrow neck of the bottle, and the incredible multitudes of Americans who were scattered about in Germany, Austria, Russia, and parts of Switzerland, came pouring out our way. There was no end to the extra work. Many a night I did not get my clothes off, but took a bath and breakfast in the morning and went ahead with the next day's business. No eight-hour day in that establishment!

It would have been impossible to hold on and keep going but for the devotion and industry of the entire Legation staff, and the splendid aid of the volunteers who came to help us through. Professor George Grafton Wilson, of Harvard, was our Counsellor in International Law. Professor Philip M. Brown, of Princeton, former Minister to Honduras, gave his valuable service. Professor F. J. Moore, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took charge of the registration bureau. Hon. Charles H. Sherrill, former Ambassador to the Argentine, and Charles Edward Russell, the Socialist, and his wife, were among our best workers. Alexander R. Gulick was at the head of the busy correspondence department. Van Santvoord Merle-Smith, Evans Hubbard, and my son ran the banking department. These are only a few names among the many good men and women who helped their country for love.

My library was the Diplomatic Office, to which the despatches and the passports came; the Conference Chamber, where all vexed questions were discussed and decided; the Court of Appeal, where people who thought they had not received fair treatment could present their complaints; and the Consolation Room, where the really distressed, as well as the slightly hysterical, came to tell their troubles. Some of them were tragic and some comic. The most agitated and frightened persons were among the fat commercial men. The women, as a rule, were fine and steady and cheerful, especially the American-born. They met the adventure with good sense and smiling faces; asked with commendable brevity for the best advice or service that we could give them; and usually took the advice and were more grateful for the service than it deserved.

So the days rolled on, full of infinitely varied cares and labors; and every afternoon, about five o'clock, the whole staff with a dozen or a score of our passing friends, went out under the spreading chestnut-tree in the back garden for a half-hour of tea and talk. It was all very peaceful and democratic. We were in neutral, friendly Holland. The big, protecting shield of "Uncle Sam" was over us, and we felt safe.

III

Yet how near, how fearful, was the fierce reality of the unpardonable war! Belgium was invaded by the Germans, an hour or two away from us. At any moment their troops might be tempted to take the short cut through the narrow strip of Dutch territory which runs so far down into Belgium; and then the neutrality of Holland would be gone! The little country would be part of the battle-field. Holland has always been resolved to fight any invader.

All through August and September, 1914, that fear hung over the Dutch people. It recurred later again and again—whenever a movement of German troops came too close to the borders of Holland; whenever a newspaper tale of impending operations transpired from Berlin or London. Once or twice the anxiety rose almost to a popular panic. But I noticed that even then the stock-market at Amsterdam remained calm. Now, the Dutch are a very prudent folk, especially the bankers. Therefore I concluded that somebody had received strong assurances both from Germany and Great Britain that neither would invade the Netherlands provided the other abstained.

But all the time there was that dreadful example of the "scrap of paper"—the treaty which had been no protection for Belgium—to shake confidence in any pledge of Germany. And all the time the news from just beyond the border grew more and more horrible. Towns and villages were looted and burned. Civilians were massacred; women outraged; children brought to death. Heavy fines and ransoms were imposed for slight or imaginary offenses. (They amounted to more than $40,000,000 in addition to the "war contribution" exacted, which by August, 1917, had reached $288,000,000.) Churches were ruined. Priests were shot. The country was stripped and laid waste. All the scruples and rules by which men had sought to moderate the needless cruelties of war were mocked and flung aside. Ruin marked the track of the German troops, and terror ran before their advance.

On August 19 Aerschot was sacked and 150 of its inhabitants killed. On the 20th Andenne met the same fate and the number of the slain was 250. On the 23d Dinant was wrecked and more than 600 men and women were murdered. On the 25th the university library at Louvain was set on fire and burned. The pillage and devastation of the city and its environs continued for ten days. More than 2,000 houses were destroyed, and more than 100 civilians were butchered. Time would fail me to tell of the industrious little towns and the quaint Old World hamlets that were wrecked, or of the men and women and young children who were tortured, and had trial of mockings and bonds and imprisonment, and were slain by the sword and by fire. Is it not all set down by sworn witnesses in the great gray book of the Kingdom of Belgium, and in the blue book of the committee of which Lord Bryce was the head? Have I not heard with my own ears the agony of those whose parents were shot down before their eyes, whose children were slain or ravished, whose wives or husbands were carried into captivity, whose homes were made desolate, and who themselves barely escaped with their