The great and good Germany cannot be troubled to distinguish between Dutch and other boats, and if occasionally a Dutch ship is captured or sent to the bottom, it is a useful reminder of what she might do to her "poor relation" if she really let herself go. Fighting for the freedom of the seas! Holland has fought for them herself. Holland has a great naval tradition. She knows quite well what England has been and is. She knows too, and can see, how her sons and brothers in South Africa were treated by the British in England's last war, and how they regard England and Germany now.
Raemaekers' cartoon is very skilful. If we had not seen it done, we should not have believed it possible to produce at once so clever a likeness of Von Tirpitz and so excellent an old fox. But the goose is by no means a foolish bird, though its wisdom may sometimes be shown in knowing its own weakness. It was they, and not the watchdogs, that saved the Capitol. In old days it was the custom to call the Germans the "High Dutch" and the inhabitants of Holland the "Low Dutch." It was a geographical distinction. The contrast in moral elevation is the other way.
[Illustration: FOX TIRPITZ PREACHING TO THE GEESE
"You see, my little Dutch geese, I am fighting for the freedom of the seas." (The Germans illegally captured several Dutch ships.)]
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A Vile feature of German "frightfulness" is this: that she mixes poison with her prisoners' rations. Not content with starving their bodies, she hides truth from them and floods their minds with lies. Those in command--officers, educated men, claiming the service of their soldiers and civil guard and the respect of their nation--deliberately hash a daily meal of falsehood and serve up German victories and triumphs on land and sea as sauce to the starvation diet of their defenceless captives.
In the earlier months of the war, while yet the spiritual slough into which Germany had sunk was unguessed, and the mixture of child and devil exemplified by "frightfulness" continued unfathomed, these daily lies undoubtedly answered their cowardly purpose, cast down the spirit of thousands, and added another pang to their captivity. But our armies know better now, and those diminishing numbers likely to be taken prisoner in the future see the end more clearly than the foe can. Lies will be met with laughter henceforth, for our enemies have put themselves beyond the pale. They may starve and insult our bodies; but their power to poison our brains has passed from them forever. We know them at last. They have spun a web of barbed villainy between their souls and ours; and the evil committed for one foul purpose alone--to terrify free men and break the spirit of the sons of liberty--has produced results far different and created a situation more terrible for them than for their outraged enemies.