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THE CENSORSHIP

In one direction the censorship exercised a healthy influence. When war broke out, the German hatred of the enemy found the coarsest and most disgusting expression. For instance, the Bonner Zeitung (a newspaper written by the professors for the professors of the University), reporting the shooting of a Russian lady for espionage, added: “And now the carrion of her carcase is rotting in its well-deserved grave.” (I disdain to render the original more exactly.) Picture-postcards and flysheets were issued in thousands, in which all the resources of the filthiest imagination in Europe were employed to vilify the enemy. But one day they disappeared like magic from the shop-windows, and the newspapers took on a cleaner tone. After the news of the destruction of Louvain came, the papers were inclined to exult and glorify the deed. But a sign from the Government was enough to keep their enthusiasm within bounds. It is the habit to laugh at the Germans for their slavish press, but I am certain they would not have held out so long as they have done under any other system. Only in England is it possible for the populace to be daily fed with wild stories of the incompetence, stupidity, or treachery of the Government, and yet to continue to prosecute the war with undiminished vigour.