Germany has not only claimed Shakspere, but she has claimed control of all the Western world; one claim is as likely to be conceded as the other.
The Huns have hugged this conviction to their obscene souls. And it is not the least of a series of preposterous and ridiculous blunders. Throwing as rubbish to the void the Tables of the Law, they have cherished what they believe to be the last and greatest commandment: _Thou shalt not be found out_.
For the moment this fact does not oppress them too seriously. Indeed, to the commander of the submarine who sank the _Lusitania_ the Iron Cross has been awarded. We wonder whether he will wear it, if he happens to find himself after the war at some great function in any neutral country?
To the psychologist this Hun attribute, shared with the ostrich, of hiding his head and believing that the rest of his person is unseen, provokes some interesting hypotheses. _Inter alia_, it serves to remind us that birds, however big, stand next to reptiles in the scale of creation. Hun methods are distinctively reptilian. The Hun, when fully gorged, becomes lethargic and stupid. In this cartoon, the Hun Eagle, appropriately emblazoned upon that portion of the Hun body of which we may confidently hope to see more and more in the near future, reminds me of that loathsome beast--the Turkey Buzzard. In California, where I first made his acquaintance, this horrible vulture would have been exterminated long ago had he not been protected by the law, which recognized his peculiar usefulness as a scavenger. Hungry, these buzzards are almost unapproachable; after a carrion meal a child can despatch them with a stone.
May we not assume that the Huns, however clever and cunning when hungry, become as boas and buzzards after a surfeit? To-day they are boasting of what they have absorbed on the map of Europe. Do they realize yet the dead weight of these temporary conquests? Germania, like some monstrous viper, has swallowed her own young. Unlike the viper, she cannot disgorge them alive.
Such reflections are not intended to minimize the task that still confronts the Allies. But what the Hun has done by land and air and sea will be the measure of his undoing.