Trenches by the beaches and barricades by the highways are noticeable along the entire south and east coasts of England, but they are without stores or equipment.  You run across these trenches in the moonlight as you journey about the country and for the moment you wonder for what purpose somebody dug those long ditches by the shore, and what the trench or irrigation scheme is.  Your answer comes when you run straight into a timber barricade across the highway nearby.  Then you look down the coast and see flashing searchlights, note the lights of steamers passing up and down the coast, and reflect that there is no universal law in war.  The Channel steamers are carrying lights in the war area, but the North Atlantic steamers still cross the ocean without showing even port or starboard lights.  The street cars moving in the English coast cities must, of course, be lighted and the streets must have some illuminant; but the railroad carriages, hotels, and private houses must draw their curtains.  Yet railroad terminals and piers must have their lights, and harbors must have their searchlights.  General service lights must be ablaze, but individual glimmers must be curtained.  It reminds one of Cowper, the English poet, who, in the same kennel, cut a big hole for his big dog and a little hole for the pup.

The most talked-of war subject in England is the German spy system.  It is estimated there were between 30,000 and 40,000 German spies, and many times this number of German reservists, in England at the outbreak of the war.  For years England has laughed over German theoretical discussions of how best to invade England, and German studies of English coast lines and country resources.

I heard years ago of a young Englishman who disputed in Berlin the war-office plans of his father’s estate.  He declared that he thought he ought to know the land where he was born and brought up as a boy, and that there were only two springs of water thereon, instead of three.  The German general staff said their maps of England were correct and were not based on English authority.  The young man found on his return to England that the German maps were correct and that his father’s estate had three springs whence men and horses could be watered, although his family had never noted the existence of a third.

Two years ago some friends of mine were playing tennis in an English village and inquired the occupation of two young Germans, who seemed to be good tennis-players, but without family relations or settled business.

The response of the hostess was:  “Oh, they are just two German spies of good education and charming manner looking over the country here, and we find them very useful in making up our tennis tournaments.”  It was looked upon as just a part of the German map-making plans, and England was an open book for anybody to map.  Baedeker published the guide-books of the world:  why should n’t the Germans make all the maps of the world,—­especially if German map-making were cheaper than English map-making?