is also to fight for her.

"We are living hours now as tragic as any country has ever known. All is destruction and ruin around us. Everywhere we see mourning. Our army has lost half of its effective force. Its percentage in dead and wounded will never be obtained by any of the belligerents. There remains to us only a corner of ground over there by the sea. The waters of the Yser flow through an immense plain peopled by the dead. It is called the Belgian Cemetery. There sleep our children by the thousands. There they are sleeping their last sleep. The struggle goes on bitterly and without mercy.

"Your sons, Mr. President, are at the front; mine as well. For months we have been living in anxiety regarding the morrow.

"Why these sacrifices, why this sorrow? Belgium could have avoided these disasters, saved her existence, her treasures, and the life of her children, but she preferred her honor."

Not long after this second protest, M. Léon Théodor was arrested, deported to Germany and if now living, is suffering imprisonment for the offense of defending the oppressed civilian population from a system of espionage, drumhead courts-martial and secret executions, which in their malignity should excite the professional jealousy of Danton, Marat and Robespierre. It was in this manner that the lofty promise of the German Chancellor that his country would make good the wrong done to Belgium has been kept.

Such was the condition of affairs in Belgium when Edith Cavell was arrested on August 5th, 1915.

About the same time some thirty-five other prisoners were similarly arrested by the military authorities, two-thirds of whom were women.

The arrest was evidently a secret one for it is obvious that for a time Miss Cavell's friends knew nothing of her whereabouts. Even the American Legation, which had assumed the care of British citizens in Belgium, apparently knew nothing of Miss Cavell's whereabouts until it learned after a second inquiry the fact of her arrest and the place of her imprisonment from the German Civil Governor of Belgium on September 12th, 1915.

As Miss Cavell was a well-known personage in Brussels, it is altogether unlikely that the fact of her arrest and imprisonment would have been unknown to the American Legation in Brussels if the fact of her arrest had been a matter of public information on August 5th or shortly thereafter. In other words, if the arrest had been an open and notorious one, it seems to me unlikely that the American Embassy would have been wholly without information on the subject and when the friends of Miss Cavell found an opportunity to send some information as to her disappearance to the British Foreign Office, it seems unlikely that they would not have given more specific details.

Evidently some information had reached the Foreign Office as to Miss Cavell's disappearance, for on August 26th Sir Edward Grey requested the American Ambassador in London to ascertain through the American Legation in Brussels whether it was true that Miss Cavell had been arrested, and it seems clear from the diplomatic correspondence that the American Legation at Brussels knew nothing of the matter until it received this inquiry from the American Ambassador in London. The fact of her arrest by the German military authorities must have been known, but the place of her imprisonment and the nature of the charges against her were apparently withheld.

This feature of the case and the manner in which Mr. Brand Whitlock, the American Minister, was prevented from rendering any effective aid to Miss Cavell, presents one aspect of the tragedy which especially concerns the honor and dignity of the United States and should receive its swift and effectual recognition.

Her secret trial and hurried execution was a studied affront to the American Minister at Brussels, and therefore to the American nation. It is true that in all he did to save her life he was acting in behalf of and for the benefit of Great Britain, whose interests the United States Government has taken over in Belgium; but this cannot affect the fact that when Brand Whitlock intervened in behalf of the prisoner, sought to secure her a fair trial, and prevent her execution, and especially when he asked her life as a favor in return for the services our country had rendered Germany and German subjects in the earlier days of the war, he spoke as an American and as the diplomatic representative of the United States.

So secret was Miss Cavell's arrest and so sinister the methods whereby her end was compassed, that the American Minister in Belgium was obliged to write on August 31st to Baron von der Lancken, the German Civil Governor of Belgium, and ask whether it was true that she was under arrest. To this the German Military Governor did not even deign to make a reply, although it was clearly a matter of life and death.

The discourtesy of such silence to a great and friendly nation needs no comment, and will simply serve to remind the American people that Germany has never yet replied to another request of the United States that Germany disavows the massacre of nearly 200 American men, women, and children on the Lusitania.

Not hearing from Baron von der Lancken, our Minister on September 10th again wrote to him and again asked for a reply. He asked for the opportunity "to take up the defense of Miss Cavell with the least possible delay." To this, Baron Lancken deigned to reply by an ex parte statement that Miss Cavell had admitted

The Baron further answered that her defense had been intrusted to an advocate by the name of Braun, "who is already in touch with the proper German authorities," and added:

It will thus be seen and will hereafter appear more fully that in advance of her trial Miss Cavell was kept in solitary confinement and was denied any opportunity to confer with counsel in order to prepare her defense. Her communication with the outside world was wholly cut off, with the exception of a few letters, which she was permitted to write under censorship to her assistants in the school for nurses, and it is probable that in this way the fact of her imprisonment first became known to her friends.

The fact remains that the desire of the American Minister to have counsel see her with a view to the selection of such counsel as Miss Cavell might desire, was refused, and even the counsel whom the German Military Court permitted to act, was denied any opportunity to see his client until the trial. The counsel in question was a M. Braun, a Belgian advocate of recognised standing, but for some reason, which does not appear, he was unable or declined to act for Miss Cavell and he secured for her defense another Belgian lawyer, whose name was Kirschen. According to credible information, Kirschen was a German by birth, although a naturalized Belgian subject and a member of the Brussels