of all its noblest and most generous characteristics. The despairing
rumours of this tragedy come to us only through the chinks of that
ensanguined well which isolates it from the rest of the world. Nothing
reaches our ears but the lies of the enemy. In reality, the whole of
Belgium is one huge Prussian prison, where every cry is cruelly and
methodically stifled and where no voices are heard save those of the
gaolers. Only now and again, after a thousand adventures, despite a
thousand perils, a letter from some kinsman or captive friend arrives
from the depths of that great living cemetery, bringing us a gleam of
authentic truth.


2

You are as familiar with this truth as I am. At the moment when her
soil was invaded, Belgium numbered seven million seven hundred
thousand inhabitants. It is estimated that between two hundred and
fifty and three hundred thousand have perished in battle or massacre,
or as the result of misery and privation; and I am not speaking of the
infant children, the sacrifice of whom, owing to the dearth of milk,
has, it appears, been frightful. Five or six hundred thousand
unfortunates have fled to Holland, France or England. There remain
therefore in the country nearly seven million inhabitants; and more
than half of these seven millions are living almost exclusively on
American charity. In what is above all an industrial country,
producing normally, in time of peace, less than a third part of the
wheat necessary for home consumption, the enemy has systematically
requisitioned everything, carried off everything, for the upkeep of
his armies, and has sent into Germany what he could not consume on the
spot. The result of so monstrous a proceeding may readily be divined: