majority of the people of Greece were favorable to the Allies and that their landing at Saloniki was for the purpose of aiding Serbia, Greece’s friend and ally, which Greece had notably failed to do.  Frequent threats of the bombardment of Saloniki by the Germans or by the Bulgars were made during January, but up to February 10 the threatened attack had failed to materialize and the Allies were strongly intrenched in a 30-mile arc around the town, while the guns of a powerful fleet of British and French warships commanded the approaches and protected transports and landings.

SINKING OF THE PERSIA

On December 30 the Peninsular & Oriental liner Persia was torpedoed by a submarine, probably Austrian, in the Mediterranean about 300 miles northwest of Alexandria, and sank in five minutes.  One hundred and fifty-five out of the 400 passengers and crew were landed at Alexandria on January 1, and eleven others were subsequently reported safe.  Among those lost was Robert N. McNeely, who was on his way to take up his duties as American consul at Aden.

FROM BERLIN TO CONSTANTINOPLE

By the middle of January German engineers had succeeded in repairing the railroad bridges and roadbed destroyed during the Serbian campaign and thus reopened direct communication between Berlin and Constantinople.

CANADIAN PARLIAMENT BUILDING BURNED

On the night of February 3 the beautiful Gothic structure which housed the Canadian Parliament at Ottawa—­the architectural pride of the Dominion—­was wrecked by a fire which started in a reading room adjacent to the chamber of the House of Commons.  Six persons, two of them women friends of the Speaker’s family, lost their lives.  The House was in session when the fire broke out, and many members and other occupants of the building escaped narrowly and with great difficulty.  The money loss from the fire was enormous, and priceless paintings, books and national documents were destroyed.

Opinions differed as to the causes of the fire, but the occurrence about the same time of several highly suspicious fires in Canadian munition factories and the unexplained rapidity with which the Parliament Building fire spread with mysterious volumes of suffocating smoke, caused widespread suspicion that the disaster was of incendiary and enemy origin.  A tidal wave of resentment flooded the Dominion and deep feeling was aroused against men of German birth or extraction remaining in Canada, some of them occupying public positions of responsibility.  A Commission was appointed by the Government to investigate the causes of the fire, and, pending its report, official denials were made that German spies had anything to do with the burning of the Houses of Parliament.  These denials, however, failed to convince the Canadian people that German sympathizers were entirely innocent of any participation in the origin of the conflagration.