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 upon us, what measure would the enemy mete out to us who, as they now bitterly realise, have stood between the Kaiser and his megalomaniac dreams? I do not think we need be in any doubt as to what the German answer to that question would be!

Recent events have made it vividly apparent that the Germans have already reached a pitch of desperation in which they are willing to try any and every scheme which, at whatever cost to themselves, offered a prospect of injuring their enemies. They feel the steel net slowly, but very surely, tightening around them; like caged wild beasts they are flinging themselves frantically at the bars, now here, now there, in mad paroxysms of rage. Their wonderful military machine, if it has not absolutely broken down, is at any rate badly out of gear, though there is a huge strength still left in it. Their vaunted fleet skulks behind fortifications, and whenever it ventures to poke its head outside is hit promptly and hit hard. Their boasted Zeppelins, which were to lay ever so many "eggs" on London, have certainly, up to the time of writing, failed utterly.

We frequently hear the man-in-the-street jeer at the Zeppelin peril, and declare that it is only a "bogey" raised to frighten us. To a certain extent I think it is, but the fact that Zeppelins have not yet appeared over London is, surely, no reason why they should not come and commit havoc and cause panic as the vanguard of the raid which may be intended upon us. There is much in our apathy which is more than foolish—it is criminal. Had the country, ten years ago, listened to the warnings of Lord Roberts and others, instead of being immersed in their own pleasure-seeking and money-grubbing, we should have had no war. The public, who are happily to-day filled with a spirit of patriotism