Page:Mr. Punch's history of the Great War, Graves, 1919.djvu/86

 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 Bissing, 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.

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. One of our novelist military experts, who is not always lucky with figures, though he thoroughly enjoys them, is alleged to have discovered that there are no more men than can be raised by conscription, but that the same does not, of course, apply to the voluntary system.