A banker friend of mine found two young Germans in his village, with no other occupation than motoring the country over and making notes and sketches of cross-roads, railroad junction-points, important buildings, bridges, etc.  He thought the authorities ought to know what was going on, but received a polite invitation from the local police to mind his own business.  When once he lost his way on a motor-car trip, and ran across these fellows, he was very glad to get the right directions for the shortest way home.  They knew more about the roads of that country than did the people who were born there.

About 20,000 German spies and reservists are in detention camps on the west coast, and on the islands.  Even the German prisoners are kept away from the east coast, where it is expected the Germans may eventually struggle for their landing.

I have not the slightest confidence in any invasion of England by Germany, but I do not understand why German Zeppelins do not move in the darkness over the British Isles and drop a few bombs about the country at important places.  It may be that the German Emperor is right in his calculation that such action would do very little damage, and would strengthen tremendously the enlistments and war-expansion plans of the English.

When West Hartlepool, Whitby, and Scarborough were bombarded by the German warships on the morning of December 16, the English excitement concerning it was only a small part of what an American would have expected.  Not far from this bombarded coast is a summer resort town, where for many years a legend has existed that when in some future age England decayed and Germany came in, this would be the first landing-point.

An Englishman two or three years ago took it upon himself to find out how far this legend might have its base in any near invasion.  He looked up the record and found that all the leading summer hotels and strategic points were in the hands of Germans.  Then one day he quickly addressed his German waiter in his native tongue, demanding to know where his post was in that town in the event of hostilities.  Promptly the German replied, “Down at the schoolhouse!” Further investigation showed that every reservist had his allotted place before and after the landing, and his place in the civic organization to follow.  The Germans had also compiled lists of the people of property in that vicinity and exactly the character and amount of resources that could be commandeered from them.

If the Germans were free to map England, why should they not be free to map all its resources, individually as well as collectively?

I know a building in the heart of the London financial district that carries on its roof a Zeppelin-destroyer gun.  A few days before I was last in this building a fine-looking fellow in khaki uniform entered in haste and asked the janitor to show him to the roof that he might quickly inspect that gun and see that everything was in order, as raids might be expected at any moment.  Of course, he was taken to the roof, and his inspection quickly completed.  Ten minutes later the London police were there to inquire for a man in khaki uniform.