A. telegram in Wednesday's Times quotes a passage from the
Berliner Neueste Nachrichten demanding that two Englishmen who are now under arrest charged with espionage should be made incapable of reporting what they may have seen. The article says that they may carry in their heads what they have not got on paper, and expresses a hope that they may be imprisoned for a long period in Germany, adding in apparent seriousness, "with appropriate mental treatment, so that they may not retain too clear a memory of what they have seen." We complain of our Press, but could this sinister suggestion be matched even in our most excitable and irresponsible prints 2 Happily there need be no fear of it being put into operation. The prisoners may be condemned and punished, but the German military authorities would no more attempt to destroy their prisoners' memory and reason than would our own.
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