This afternoon I gave absolution and extreme unction to an Irishman, who has not regained consciousness since he was brought here.  He had in his portfolio a letter addressed to his mother.  The nurse is going to add a word to say that he received the last sacraments.  A Christian hope will soften the frightful news.  Emperors of Austria and Germany, if you were present when the death is announced in that poor Irish home, and in thousands, hundreds of thousands of others, in England, in France, in Russia, in Servia, in Belgium, in your own countries, in all Europe, and even in Africa and Asia!...  May God enlighten your consciences!

The French wounded in the hospital at Neuilly—­during the period when the German right wing was being beaten back from Paris—­frequently accused the German regulars of wanton cruelty, but testified to the humanity of the reservists.  The author relates several episodes illustrating both points.  Here are two: 

“The regulars are no good,” said a brave peasant reservist.  “They struck me with the butts of their rifles on my wound.  They broke and threw away all that I had.  The reserves arrive, and it is different; they take care of me.  My comrade, wounded in the breast, was dying of thirst; he actually died of it a little while afterward.  I dragged myself up to go and seek water for him; the young fellows aimed their guns at me.  I was obliged to make a half-turn and lie down again.”

Another, who also begins by praising the German field officers, saw soldiers of the active army stripping perfectly nude one of our men who had a perforated lung, and whom they had made prisoner after his wound: 

     “When they saw that they would have to abandon him, they took
     away everything from him, even his shirt, and it was done in
     pure wickedness, since they carried nothing away.”

One of the most amazing escapes is that of a soldier from Bordeaux, told partly in his own racy idiom, and fully vouched for by the author.  After relating how he left the railway at Nanteuil and traversed a hamlet pillaged by the Germans he continues: 

     We form ourselves into a skirmish line.  The shells come.  The
     dirt flies:  holes to bury an ox?  One can see them coming: 
     zzz—­boom!  There is time to get out of the way.

Arrived at the edge of the woods, we separate as scouts.  We are ordered to advance.  But, mind you, they already have our range.  The artillery makes things hum.  My bugler, near me, is killed instantly; he has not said a word, poor boy!  I am wounded in the leg.  It is about two o’clock.  As I cannot drag myself further, a comrade, before leaving, hides me under three sheaves of straw with my head under my knapsack.  The shells have peppered it full of holes, that poor sack.  Without it—­ten yards away a comrade, who had his leg broken and a piece of shell in his arm, received seven or eight