id="Page_42" class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 42]"/> would prejudice the minds of the Judges against the unfortunate woman who was being tried for a capital offense without any previous opportunity to confer with counsel. There may be a satisfactory explanation for M. Kirschen's conduct in the matter, but it has not yet appeared. It should, however, be added, in fairness to him, that the anonymous "outsider," from whom the American Legation got its only information as to the developments of the trial, stated that Kirschen "made a very good plea for Miss Cavell, using all arguments that could be brought in her favor before the court."

This does not give the lover of fair play a great deal of comfort, for if the anonymous informant was not a lawyer, the value to be attached to his or her estimate of Kirschen's plea must be regarded as doubtful.

The same unknown informant told the American Legation that Miss Cavell was prosecuted "for having helped English and French soldiers as well as Belgian young men to cross the frontier and to go over to England." It is stated on the same anonymous authority that Miss Cavell acknowledged the assistance thus given and admitted that some of them had "thanked her in writing when arriving in England."

From the same source the world gets its only information as to the exact law which Miss Cavell was accused of violating. Paragraph 58 of the German Military Code inflicts a sentence of death upon