After day after day of negative reports concerning the behaviour of German officers and servicemen, it comes as some surprise to read praise heaped upon one today. Yet our leader on the capture and destruction of the German cruiser at Keeling Island in the Indian Ocean (page 8, with the news report on page 9) opens “It is almost in our heart to regret that the Emden has been captured and destroyed; we certainly hope that Commodore Karl von Muller, her commander, has not been killed, for, as the phrase goes, he has shown himself an officer and a gentleman.” Indeed the column even goes on to compare Muller with the likes of Drake and Raleigh and claims that “the war on the sea will lose something of its piquancy, its humour and its interest now that the Emden has gone.” All this for a man and his ship who had destroyed over 74,000 tons of Allied shipping seems to be taking magnanimity in victory to extremes, considering later on it claims that the career of the cruiser “presents a clear denial of principles which were generally accepted before the war opened.”