21 JULY 1917, Page 11

FRUIT-TREES AND WAD.

[To THE Xenon Or THE "SPECTATOR:'] Sta,-1 was prepared to believe that tinder the unwritten Law of Nations, as on general principles of humanity, the destruction of fruit-bearing trees was inadmissible as an net of war, but I ronfass I was not aware till lately that -the practice had been the subject of express enactment and of unqualified condemnation in the Jewish Code more than three thousand years ago. I have not seen the words qnoted, but in any case they may be thought to bear repetition .— " When thou shalt besiege a city is long time in making war against it to take it, Dion shalt not destroy the trees thereof by suckling an axe against them; for thou meyst eat of them, and than shalt .61 cut them doiro; for is the tree of the field man, that it should be besieged of thee? Only the trees which thou knourest that they be not trees Joe 'neat thou shalt destroy and cut them down."—Deuteronomy .r.c. 19, 29 (Reeked Version).