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Copyright, 1913, by the Stir Compmy. Great Britain Rights Reserved, 5, a Society Pledge* World-Wide Peace by Destroying Great Soldier Bring Warlike “Thou Shalt Not Kill!” This terribly realistic drawing by the great Russian artist, Emile Holarek, is one of those used by the murder syndicate in its propaganda. It was found In the house of an arrested member. Paris, May 31. T HE secret police of France and of every European country are engrossed and perplexed by the dis covery of a new world wide conspiracy. This is nothing less than a murder syndicate—an iron- bound secret organization of men and women pledged to exterminate all the kings, rulers, ministers of war and generals of Europe The most intellectual reformers of the salons, the most delicate visionary women have joined hands with the red-handed anarchists of the Paris slums in this conspiracy. The object of the intellectual leaders is to put an end to war. Maddened by the constant increase armies, by the appalling developments of the mechanical implements of slaughter, an by the total failure of the peace propaganda, they have de termined to light war by murder. The only answer to all the lawful efforts of the peace advocates has been an increase of the term of military service iu France and Germany and t he addition of about 3,000,000 men to the armed forces of those count ties. The only resort, then, was to at tack the men who made war. Above all, they determined to attack the generals. They were struck by the significant fact that the generals and men in very high places who make war are the ones who run least risk in war. Therefore, it was necessary to bring war home to them. The gen erals are easily reached in time of peace, and even in time of war by those on their own side. A long series of recent assassina tions and attempted assassinations is now attributed to the conspirators. The King of Greece, at the head of his victorious army, was assassinated by one of them. The murderer was Aleko Schinas, a visionary half-de mented schoolmaster, a true type of those who are involved in this move ment. Nazim Pasha, the Turkish com mander-in-chief, a brilliant man, who might have saved his country, -was murdered by another of the band dur ing the retreat to Constantinople. King Alfonso of Spain nearly per ished at the hands of one of them, Rafael Sanchez Aliegre, the other day. The French secret police are now investigating the mysterious circum stances attending the death of Gen eral Guillemin, a. brilliant young general, who would have had a command of critical importance on the eastern frontier in case of a war with Germany. The general, who was a bachelor, had been much in the society of the clever young wife of an elderly pro fessor of the University of Lille. It now appears that the general was poisoned at a dinner to which he was invited by the young woman. The life of every prominent general in the French and German armies is believed to be in danger from this cause. The number of women of high social posi tion engaged in the conspiracy is the most baffling factor to the police. It is even whispered that prin cesses of royal families are involved in the movement. These women are very difficult to handle because they are thoroughly earnest in their desire to end war, are very intelligent and reckless of personal consequences. Evidently they have been inspired by tbe success of the English militant suffragettes in creating a reigh of terroi among the ruling classes. The women of the new conspiracy are in many cases intimate friends of the leading generals. It is •*F ather In Heaven! Thou art gazing down at us In such terrible silence. Deal l'hou shudder at these sons of men? Thou poor and slight God! l'hou couldst only rain Thy paltry pitch and sulphur on Sodom and Go morrah. But we, Thy children, whom Thou hast created, we are going to exterminate them by high- pressure machinery, and butcher whole cities in factories. Here we stand, and while we stretch our hands to Thy Son in prayer and ory Hosannah! we are hurling shells and shrapnels In the face of Thy image, and shooting the Sou of Man down from His Cross like a target at the rifle butts. “And now the Holy Communion is being celebrated. The organ is ■playing mysteriously from afar and the flesh and blood of tbe Redeemer Is mingling with our flesh and blood. There He is hang ing on the Cross above me and gaz ing down upon me! “How pale these cheeks look! And these eyes are Every Ruler “The Mothers Curse War.” Ferrier’s famous painting of war’s horrors} used by the “Syndicate.P ‘War.’ Franz Stuck’* powerful painting, showing the Inhuman war god riding over his victims. By such pictures as these the “Murder Syndicate" part of its campaign. carries on a most important the eyes as of one dead! Who was this Christ Who is to aid us, and Whose blood we drink? What was it they once taught us at school? Didst Thou not love mankind? And didst Thou not die for the whole human race? Stretch out Thine arms toward me. There is something I would fain ask of the * * * ah! they have nailed Thy hand to the Cross, so that Thou canst not stretch out a finger toward us. "Shuddering, I fix my eyes on the corpse-like face and see that He has died long ago, that He is nothing more than wood, nothing other than a puppet. Christ, it is no longer Thee to whom we pray. Look there! Look there! It is he. The new patron saint of a Christian State! Look there! It is he, the great Djengis Khan. Of him we know that he swept through the history of the world with fire and sword, and piled up pyramids of skulls. Yes, that is he. Let us heap up mountains of human heads, and pile up heaps of human entrails. Great Djengis Khan! Thou, our pat ron saint. Do thou bless us! Pray to thy blood- drenched father seated above the skies of Asia, that he may sweep with us through the clouds; that he may strike down that, accursed nation till It writhes in its blood, till it never can rise again. A red mist swims before my eyes. “Of a sudden ) see nothing hut blood before me. The heavens have opened, and the red flood pours iu through the windows. Blood wells up on the altar. The walls run blood from the ceiling to the floor and * * * God the Father steps out of the blood. Every scale of his skin stands erect, his beard and hair drip blood. A giant cf blood stands before me. He seats himself backward on the altar and is laughing from thick, coarse lips—there stts the King of Dahomey and butch ers his slaves. The black executioner raises his sword and whirls It above my head. Another moment and my head will roll down on the floor. * * * Another mo ment and the red jet will spurt from my neck. * * * Murderers! Murderers! None other than Murderers. Lord God in Heaven. Murderer to Thy Face!” Lamszus has succeeded iu drawing a most horrifying picture of the fate of men helplessly opposed to the chemical implements of slaughter. “We are no longer making war against men,” he says, “ but against picric acid and electric wires.” The old red-blooded emotions of combat have been eliminated by the mechanical conditions of modern war The strain becomes greater than human nerves can endure, and hideous forms of insanity mark the course of a battle. Perhaps the most gripping feature of the book is a picture of a regiment driven to mad ness by the horror of being show ered by the blood and bones and dying remains, of a regiment of the enemy blown up by a mined field. The onlookers, theoretically the vic tors, .begin fratically beating the life out of the dying remains, not because they are in any danger, but because the hideousness of the scene has deprived them of reason. The soldier thus describes his own condition at the end of this dreadful scene: “I see wild beasts all around me distorted unnaturally in a llfe-aud- death grapple * * * with blood shot eyes, with foaming, gnashing mouths, they attack and kill one an other, and try to mangle one another * * * I leap to my feet. I race out into the night, and tread ou quak ing flesh * * * step on hard heads and stumble over weapons and helmets * * * something is clutching at my feet like hands, so that 1 race away like a hunted deer with the hounds at his heels * * * and ever rpore bodies * * * breathless * * * out of one field into another * » * horror is crooning over my head * * * horror is crooning beneath my feet * * * and nothing but dying, mangled flesh!” * * * It will easily be understood that sensitive and imaginative people who have fallen under the influence of writing of this character would feel justitied in killing those responsible for bringing such horrors on the hu man race. a simple matter for them to drop a dose of poison in the war lord’s wine, or, if need be, to thrust a stiletto into his heart when he is off his guard. Another recent death of a French general is said to have been of the latter violent type. The circumstances surrounding it were of such a character that the authorities are in doubt whether they dare risk the scandal of a public prosecution. The advanced women of France and Germany and other countries are making common cause in this move ment. They have been inspired to a great extent by the German schoolmaster, Wilhelm Lamszus, author of that amazing new book, “The Human Slaughter house," a work which interprets their fervid senti ments most faithfully. This book has been suppressed by the German Em peror, who sees in it a deadly attack upon all directors of war, such as he is himself. There is one passage in this book, which expresses especially well the mad passionate, fanatic feeling against war which animates those who hfive sworn to end it by murder. Here is this passage in full: T Be Sure It’s Not Soap That Makes Your Soft Drink Foam! fHE recent warning issued by the New York Department of Health of the custom of ven dors of “soft drinks” to produce an inviting, creamy foam by the use of “saponin,” a preparation of soap bark, reminds the editor of the Lon don Lancet, medical journal, that similar warnings have been printed in that periodical for several years past. The Health Department bulle tin on the subject says: “The average person who drinks soda water, sarsaparilla, cream soda, root beer and other so-called 'soft drinks,’ probably imagines, if he gives any thought to the matter, that the creamy deep foam which tops his glass results naturally from the liberation of the carbonic acid gas therein contained. Such, unfortu nately is frequently not the case, the foam, especially when deep, white and creamy, being sometimes pro duced artificially by the addition of a substance known as soap bark, various preparations of which are upon the market. “ ‘Soap bark’ is poisonous and markedly so, its toxic principle being sapotoxin. On this account the De partment of Health has determined to prohibit its use, and henceforth if the cheaper grades of soda water, etc., do not present so attractive an appearance as heretofore, they will, at least, exercise no detrimental ef fect upon the community.” Remarking that this injurious adul teration of “soft drinks” doubtless still prevails elsewhere, the Lancet says: “We objected primarily to the falfee appearance of healthy effervescence which the addition of saponin gives to beverages, because such an ap pearance implies a wholesome aerated condition of the fluid due to disengagement of carbonic acid gas. “Although the quantity of saponin necessary for the purpose Is small, yet it Is equally without doubt a pois onous glucoside, and on general prin ciples It Is desirable to keep poisons out of liquids destined for human i consumption. That saponin Is notjj^ago prohibited in Austria.” altogether an inert body is evident from the fact that its lather has been used to kill pediculi of the scalp, and further, though it appears to have been used as an expectorant In •bronchitis, it is contra-indicated in inflammation of the intestines or stomach and in ulcerated couditions of the mucous membrane. “Our references to these facts in relation to the use of saponin in com mon beverages, such as mineral waters and beer, were generally dis credited on the score that the quan tity sufficient for giving a “head” ■ was infinitesimal. ^ “It is significant, at all events, that the use of saponin was some years