2 DECEMBER 1916, Page 3

The demonstration at Larissa yielded a dramatic episode. Some of

the Royalists laid themselves on the railway in front of a train loaded with artillery that was being sent south in response to the Allies' demands. We have read lately of the desperate Belgian women who threw themselves in front of trains that were about to carry their husbands, sons, and brothers away into German slavery. They had to be " prised off the line " with bayonets, as the Dutch papers tell us. But at Larissa the demonstrators had taken the precaution of removing the driver and stoker from the train ! This appeal to a judgment which had been squared in advance reminds us of the guileless answer of the little Scots girl to some one who asked whether her father, a minister, had decided to accept the. offer of another ministry (where the stipend was higher). " He's making it the subject o' private prayer. But the trunks is a' packit." But perhaps the best precedent for inexpensive gallantry 18: " Storm the fort t There's no one in it— Some one's been to see."