More agreeable is the sportsmanship of the trenches, where a correspondent tells of the shooting of a hare and the recovery of the corpse, by a reckless Tommy, from the turnip-field which separated our trenches from those of Fritz.

Amongst other signs of the times the emergence of the Spy Play is to be noted, in which the alien enemy within our gates is gloriously confounded.  Yet, if a certain section of the Press is to be believed, the dark and sinister operations of the Hidden Hand continue unchecked.

The Germans as unconscious humorists maintain their supremacy hors concours.  A correspondent of the Cologne Gazette was with other journalists recently entertained to dinner in a French villa by the Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria.  “The party, while dining,” we are told, “talked of the defects of French taste, and Prince Rupprecht said that French houses were full of horrors.”  True, O Prince, but the French are determined to drive them out.  Better still, in the month which witnessed the sinking of the Lusitania we read this panegyric of the Teuton in Die Welt:  “Clad in virtue and in peerless nobility of character, unassailed by insidious enemies either within or without, girded about by the benign influences of Kultur, the German, whether soldier or civilian, pursues his destined way, fearless and serene.”

June, 1915.

The weeks that have passed since the sinking of the Lusitania have left Germany not merely impenitent but glorying in her crime.  “The destruction of the Lusitania,” says Herr Baumgarten, Professor of Theology, “should be greeted with jubilation and enthusiastic cheering, and everybody who does not cheer is no real or true German.”  Many harsh things have been said of the Germans, but nothing quite so bitter as this suggestion for a test of nationality.  But while Germany jubilates, her Government is painfully anxious to explain everything to the satisfaction of America.  The conversations between the two Powers are continuous but abortive.  President Wilson’s dove has returned to him, with the report “Nothing doing,” and the American eagle looks as if he would like to take on the job.

Germany has had her first taste of real retaliation in the bombardment of Karlsruhe by Allied airmen, and is furiously indignant at the attack on an “unfortified and peaceful” town—­which happens to be the headquarters of the 14th German Army Corps and to contain an important arsenal as well as large chemical, engineering and railway works.  Also she is very angry with Mr. Punch, and has honoured him and other British papers with a solemn warning.  Our performances, it seems, are “diligently noted, so that when the day of reckoning arrives we shall know with whom we have to deal, and how to deal with them effectually.”  It is evident that in spite of Italy’s entry into the war the mass of the Germans are still true to their old hate of England.