IT is always difficult, after a series of catastrophic events, to go back to one’s mental outlook of the time before they happened. But if the civilized world could recapture its pre-war view, I believe it would realize the most startling of all the results of Armageddon to be that we now take Germany’s outrages on neutrals for granted. At first the bulk of us simply could not believe the tale of the horrors inflicted on non-combatant men, women, and children of innocent and neutral Belgium. But Germany had at any rate made Belgium a belligerent, before beginning them. Now that similar horrors should fall on men, women, and children of Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and America, surprises no more: it has become a mere matter of course.

It is the business of the prophet, the seer, and the poet to awaken the world when it is worshipping false gods, when from fear, or self-interest, or sheer bewilderment, it fails to see the things that are in their naked horror and their awful shame. But prophet, seer, and poet can speak only through the printed word, and in the maze and mass of conflicting appeals the words of truth are lost and ineffective. But if the ear be deaf and the mind numb, the eyes of all retain their childlike curiosity. It is Raemaekers’ secret that he can present his own clear vision of the truth in figures that pierce instantly to the conscience of the dullest. To kill a child at all for a political purpose, is the sin of Herod. To kill the children of those with whom you have no nominal quarrel, stipulates just that negation of soul which we call beastly. The truth about Tirpitz, and all that that accursed name stands for, is personified in the loathsome Satyr of the Sea portrayed in this cartoon.

ARTHUR POLLEN.