Several reasons have been given for the destruction of Rheims Cathedral. The real one is now said to be the following. Owing to the Red Cross Flag being flown from one of the towers the Germans thought the building was only a hospital.
A Scotsman gifted with much native humour wishes it to be known how glad he is to see that the Frenchmen have been getting their Aisne back.
It is reported that the Kaiser is proceeding to East Prussia to assume the chief command there. In Petrograd the news is only credited by extreme optimists.
It does not say much for the enterprise of our English newspapers that we should have had to go all the way to India for a reference to what must have been an exceedingly clever capture of one of the enemy. "As the war progresses," says The Times of India of the 20th ult., "the stories of German brutality become more and more frequent. One instance is shown in a letter from a German soldier captured in a mail-bag in Lorraine."
We have always held that the Turkish sense of humour has been underrated. A leading Ottoman statesman has told Der Tag (the newspaper of that name: the real thing has not turned up yet): "We only fear for Germany one thing—her magnanimity towards the conquered, a quality which she shares with the great Turkish conquerors of the past."