Northcliffe, the Lord of Yellow Journals, but an uncommonly brilliant fellow, has taken to his bed from sheer nervous worry.

"The revelations that are imminent," says he, "will shake the world--the incompetence of the Government, the losses along the Dardanelles, the throwing away of British chances in the Balkans, perhaps the actual defeat of the Allies." I regard Lord Northcliffe less as an entity than as a symptom.

But he is always very friendly to us and he knows the United States better than any Englishman that I know except Bryce.

He and Bryce are both much concerned about our Note's coming just "at this most distressing time." "If it come when we are calmer, no matter; but now it cannot receive attention and many will feel that the United States has hit on a most unhappy moment--almost a cruel moment--to remind us of our sins."-- That's the substance of what they say.
Overwork, or perhaps mainly the indescribable strain on the nerves and vitality of men, caused by this experience, for which in fact men are not built, puts one of our staff after another in bed.

None has been seriously sick: the malady takes some form of "grip." On the whole we've been pretty lucky in spite of this almost regular temporary breakdown of one man after another.