A few days since there arrived a prisoner, driven in on foot by a mounted Cossack, sent back by the officer commanding the reconnoissance party which had captured him.  He came up the street, shuffling at a quick walk to keep ahead of the horse and the thin, sinister Cossack—­an elderly farmer, in work-stained clothes, with the lean neck and pursed jaws of a hard bargainer.  In all his bearing and person there was evident the man of toilsome life who had prospered a little; in that soldier-thronged street, in his posture of a prisoner with the Cossack’s revolver at his back, he was conspicuous and grotesque.  His eyes, under the gray pent of his brows, were uneasy, and through all his commonplace quality and his show of fortitude there was a gleam of the fear of death that made him tragic.  He had been found on his farm doing nothing in particular; it was out of simply general suspicion that the Russian officer had ordered him to be searched.  The result was the discovery of a typewritten paper, giving precise instructions as to how a German civilian in East Prussia must act toward the enemy—­how to signal movements of infantry, of cavalry, of artillery; how to estimate the numbers of a body of men, and what to say if questioned, and the like—­a document conceived and executed with true Prussian exactitude and clearness, a masterpiece in the literature of espionage.

For him there was no hope; even The Hague Convention, which permits mine-laying, does not protect spies, however earnestly and dangerously they serve their country.  He passed, always at the same forced shuffle of reluctant feet, toward his judges and his doom.

Belgian Cities Germanized

By Cyril Brown,

Staff Correspondent of THE NEW YORK TIMES.

BRUSSELS, Nov. 4.—­Of all the war capitals of Europe, Brussels under the German occupation is probably the gayest and the most deceptive.  It certainly outrivals Berlin in life and brilliancy, as Berlin outshines London.  The Germans are free spenders afield; their influx here by thousands has put large sums of money into circulation, resulting in a spell of artificial, perhaps superficial, prosperity.

The crowds surging all day up and down the principal shopping street, the Rue Neuve, overflow the sidewalks and fill the street.  Well-dressed crowds promenade along the circular boulevard all afternoon and into the night.  Places of amusement and the cafes are crowded.  The hundreds of automobiles loaded with officers speeding about the streets, with musical military horns blowing, add to the gay illusion.

Nowhere save at the Great Headquarters in France, where the Kaiser stays when not haranguing his troops at the front, will you see such a brilliant galaxy of high officers—­and every day seems a holiday in Brussels.