in the attack, and three of them got through the defences. One bombed Hampstead and St John's Wood, doing damage to private houses in the neighbourhood of Belsize Square and Lord's Cricket Ground; another left its marks on Golders Green, Finchley, Mill Hill, and Whetstone; and the third in flying across London dropped a 300 kg. bomb on Warrington Crescent, Paddington, destroying four four-story houses, wrecking two and seriously damaging 12 others. St Paul's Cathedral was struck by an anti-aircraft shell; the south-western bastion and the stone stairs underneath were damaged. The casualties were 19 killed and 34 injured.

On Whitsunday, May 19, 1918, the most determined raid attempted by the Germans was made. The conditions were favourable; the waning moon shone brightly, and the sky did not show a cloud. No less than 28 machines, mostly Gothas, of the Third Bombing Squadron, started for the attack. The first group came up the Thames estuary about 11 p.m., skirting the north Kent coast, and was heavily engaged by the anti-aircraft defences. One raider was attacked by a British airman and fell in flames. Another group, which approached from Essex, also lost a machine, brought down by gunfire. Our anti-aircraft gunnery was excellent. The close and regular formation which the raiders tried to preserve in their flight up the river towards London was broken up by the fire of the outer defences. Some turned tail and went back; others dispersed north and south of the river, and, getting into the barrage, which was exceptionally heavy, were so disconcerted that they appeared for the most part to fly aimlessly, and as aimlessly to be getting rid of their explosives, without any attempt to look for definite objectives. Thirteen of the raiders got in over London, and dropped, according to 'The Times History of the War,' five bombs of 300 kg., 35 of 100 kg., and over 100 of 50 kg. The L.C.C. report, however, gives the number as 34 explosive bombs only. (These discrepancies of figures appear all through the story of the raids.) Except for two outbreaks of fire in larger premises, the damage was confined to the wrecking of house property of the smaller middle-class sort, spread over Poplar, Bromley, Bethnal Green, Hackney,

Kentish Town, Islington, Harringay, Regent's Park, Kilburn, Great Portland Street, and St James's; and, south of the river, in Old Kent Road, Peckham, Lewisham, Catford, and Lower Sydenham. Willis's Rooms were struck by a bomb, and a tavern at Hither Green was demolished and its inmates were pinned down by the debris for some hours, a child being killed. The total casualties were 49 killed and 177 injured (34 killed and 94 injured in London).

Hotly engaged by the anti-aircraft defences, some of the raiders attempted to make their way down the river, and others proceeded eastwards overland. Besides those brought down earlier, two were brought down before they reached the coast; two or three machines fell in the sea; and it is believed that ten in all of the enemy machines came to grief in this raid, a third of the raiders' force. This result was largely due to a new weapon in the hands of our airmen, a special bullet with regard to which great official secrecy has been observed, but of which the experience was enough to prevent any further raids. At any rate, this was the last German raid on London, and there was only one subsequent raid (Aug. 5) on England; though our enemies continued to give their attention to Paris, which they subsequently raided sixteen times.

This long series of raids must have cost the Germans millions of money and many valiant lives; and what was the result? Was the game worth the candle? The military damage was quite insignificant. Though bombs were twice dropped within Woolwich Arsenal, Dockyard, and Barracks, the damage was quite of a minor character. The damage at the Central Telegraph Office might easily have been more serious. So, too, with the railway stations struck; the only really serious damage was at Liverpool Street and St Pancras. Numerous Government buildings were damaged, but there was nothing to prevent the departments from carrying on. All the London bridges escaped damage.

When we think of the priceless treasures in our historical and architectural buildings, and of the losses inflicted by the Germans on Rheims, Louvain, and other continental cities, it is remarkable, and a cause for

congratulation, that London suffered so little. From the Tower, which was made a special target in the first daylight raids (but with little effect), the Crown jewels could be removed to a place of safety at Windsor Castle; and from the British Museum the Elgin marbles, Rosetta Stone, etc., could be carried underground to a tubestation on the newly-completed Postal Tube Railway. But what could be done to protect such buildings as Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament, and many others? Yet Westminster Abbey passed through the ordeal unscathed, except for damage to the choir house, and St Paul's suffered but slightly (from an anti-aircraft shell), as did also St George's Cathedral, Southwark Cathedral, and the Chapel Koyal, Savoy. In all 51 places of worship were damaged more or less, including St Edmund King and Martyr (Lombard Street), the City Temple, and the Great Assembly Hall, Mile End Road. Twelve theatres were damaged, several hospitals suffered, and a large number of schools were struck.

But the main losses fell on private buildings and on the dwelling-houses of the people. The L.C.C. in its schedule of statistics gives 174 buildings as destroyed and 619 as seriously damaged; but in addition to these there must have been minor damage to some thousands of houses. The total damage was estimated at 2,042,000l. -a large sum, it is true; but we have learnt to think in millions in these days. What is this figure as compared with an assessable value of 48,600,000Z.? The total damage to London was probably less than the cost of the raids to Germany. The loss of life, too, was serious, 524 killed and 1264 injured (as reported by the London Fire Brigade). These were a third of the total casualties in England-1570 killed, 4041 injured, But there are many more killed and injured in London in a single year in street accidents than in all the German air-raids; and the non-fatal injuries in a year's street accidents are about 15 times as many as the total of the three years' air-raids. And what were these numbers as compared with the casualties of a single day's fighting at the front? London did not suffer so much in proportion to its population as Paris, where 522 were killed and 1223 injured by aerial bombs and bombardment by Big

Bertha,' in spite of the fact that the Germans evidently singled out London as a special victim of their savagery.

As an integral part of German strategy in the war the air-raids on London must be pronounced a failure. The defeat of the Zeppelins by our aeroplanes was complete. But as against their great raiding aeroplanes, although our airmen did well, it is not easy for a non-military man to say whether we could claim a superiority. Our military authorities are very reticent. It would be an interesting story to learn just how, from a few small guns on the roofs of public buildings, the defence was improved with heavier guns and more powerful searchlights in our public parks, until these ultimately formed rings of light and steel for the inner and outer defences of the capital. The work of our gallant young airmen should also be told. How many of them sacrificed their lives? A question on which no light has yet been thrown is the extent to which damage and death were inflicted by the shells and shrapnel of our own guns in the fighting over London. The work of the 30,000 special constables has been recorded in two little books by Col W. T. Reay and Mr J. E. Preston Muddock. Who will tell us of the splendid efforts of the Fire Brigade? The records of the police must contain much information of value, though the police are almost as reticent as the military authorities. And the good offices of the hospitals, the St John Ambulance Association, the British Red Cross Society, the Boy Scouts, and other agencies are worthy of being recorded.

And what of the future? The bombs and airships of the present day, immensely superior as they are to those launched against London at the outset of the war, are mere toys in comparison with those which will be employed if-which God forbid-a similar conflict should break out twenty or thirty years hence.

FREDERICK A. EDWARDS.

Art. 5.-ROMAN LIFE IN THE TIME OF PLINY THE YOUNGER.

IN two articles I propose to ask the reader to accompany me in thought to two different scenes in two different ages-to Rome in the time of Pliny the Younger, and to London in the time of Addison. To-day I will attempt to give him some pictures of life at Rome and in Italy drawn chiefly from the letters of Pliny.

These letters exhibit on the whole what was best in contemporary society; for Pliny was a happy and prosperous man, rich in hereditary wealth, rich in friends, amiable, affectionate, generous, always disposed to look on the bright rather than on the gloomy side of things. For the reverse of the medal, for the misery and cruelty, the vice and corruption which were rampant in his time, we must turn to other writers -to the tragic gloom of Tacitus, to the wanton wit of Martial, to the fierce invectives of Juvenal. Not but that the sunny pages of Pliny are here and there chequered by dark memories of the reign of terror under the bad emperors Nero and Domitian, both of whom he had outlived. In one of his letters he asks a correspondent, Does it not seem to you only the other day that Nero was on the throne?' Happily he survived to see the reign and to enjoy the friendship of Trajan, one of the best and ablest of the Roman emperors. Most of his letters were written in that fortunate time, at the end of the first and the beginning of the second century of our era, when the Roman Empire was at the very zenith of its power and glory, and when Roman literature was still both splendid and prolific. Who could have imagined in that mellow autumn of the ancient world that the winter was so near at hand? that as the authors of Pliny's time were among the most brilliant, so they were destined to be the last great masters of the Latin tongue, unless we except Claudian, that poet born out of due time as if on purpose to sing the swan-song of expiring Rome?

Pliny was born under Nero in the year 61 or 62 a.D.; for he mentions that he was in his eighteenth year at the time of the great eruption of Vesuvius, which happened in the year 79 A.D. His birthplace was Como,