Mr. F. E. Drake, Major Clyde M. Hunt, Mr. Henry S. Downe and Mr. W. H.
Ingram were added to the membership of the committee.




_Wednesday, September 2_.


Thirty-first day of the war. Beautifully clear weather, cloudless sky,
northeasterly wind. Temperature at five P.M. 25 degrees centigrade.

German prisoners declare that Emperor William has made it known to every
soldier that his orders are to "take Paris or die." A German cavalry
division came into contact with British troops yesterday in the forest
of Compiegne. The British captured ten field guns. But the right wing of
the German army, which ever since the battles of Charleroi and Mons has
enveloped and turned the allied left, continues its advance. The allied
troops have retired partly to the south and partly to the southwest. A
great battle must consequently take place within the range of the Paris
forts. Work on the entrenched lines connecting the forts is actively
carried out and is said to give every satisfaction. The positions,
believed to be impregnable, are strengthened by ingenious arrangements
of barbed wire. It is reported that some of this barbed entanglement
contains live wires fed by the electric batteries of the defence.

In a stirring editorial in his newspaper _L'Homme Libre_, M.
Georges Clemenceau frankly faces the situation now that "the Germans are
close to Paris." He adds: "We have left open the approach to Paris,
while reserving to ourselves flank attacks on the enemy. If the forts do