CRASS STUPIDITY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXVIV, Issue 17, 23 December 1915, Page 4

CRASS STUPIDITY.

There are some unexpected elements ever in German "f rightfulness." There is a certain clumsiness in it which it'is inadequate to term heavyhanded. Jt is hoof-like. And it has its root in what we can only describe as crass stupidity. Yet the Germans are by no means a stupid race; in some kinds of intelligence they stand high. Hut the worst kind of "stupidity" is not that which springs from any defect in the intelligence, /bii£ from the absence of' any sense of humor- Humor has for all other lor.ms of intelligence the office of an antiseptic. It vivifies them.'lt saves them from decay. And 11 tile hoof-tike clumsiness of some of the German performances is clearly due to the absence of any sense of humour. Take, for example, the fact that Berlin imposed upon the Belgium ifi had scorched and harried—in addition to an indemnity of £l,-100,000 per month —a further and special fine of £2-5,-000,000 for its "'violation of neutrality"! This tremendous fine was a penalty not for any wrong Belgium had committed, but for the wrong it had suffered; and it was imposed »>' the Power that inflicted the Either this was the mere insolence of cruelty, or else it is the most majestically stupid performance ,in recorded history. That a nation not otherwise insane should be guilty of it is surely an example ~of. stupidity thai paralyses the human imagnation says a writer in "Life." ~ "',