The German Band, as we know it in this country, has never been noted for harmonious music. Blatancy, stridency, false notes, and persistency after the coppers, have been its chief characteristics.

And the same things prevail when it is at home.

Never since the world began has there been such a campaign of barefaced humbug and lying as that organized by William, Hindenburg, Hollweg and Co. for the deceiving and fleecing of the much-tried countries temporarily under their sway.

But the money had to be got in by hook or by crook, and by hook and by crook and in every nefarious way they have milked their unfortunate peoples dry.

But there is another side to all this. In time, the veil of lies and false intelligence of victories in the North Sea, and at Verdun, and, indeed, wherever Germany has fought and failed, will be rent by the spear of Truth.

Then will come the dÉbÂcle. And then, unless every scrap of grit and backbone has been Prussianized out of the Teuton, the revulsion of feeling will sweep the oppressors out of existence; and Germany, released from the strangle-hold, may rise once more to take the place among the civilized nations of the world which, by her foul doings of the last two years, she has deliberately forfeited.

JOHN OXENHAM.