Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-03-22

aoihty liiat 6n enemy would land at thi:
 point on the coast.
 CasrdafT was therefore selected as the
 spot to be operated upon. No one could
 for moment imagine that the syndicate
 had mined this place. and if it should be
 destroyed by motor bombs it would prove
 to the country that the government had
 not been frightened by the tricks of g
 crafty enemy
 An hour after the receipt of the note
 ln which 1t was stated that Caerdaff had
 been selected, the syndicates fleet start
 ed for that place. The crabs were ele-
 vated to cruising height, the repeller l taken in tow. and by the afternoon of
 the next day the fleet was lying off Caer-
 daff. \ note was sent on shore to the
 officer in command, stating that the
 bombardment would begin at 10 o'clock Tn the morning of the next day but one. i and requesting that information of the
 hour appointed be instantly transmitted
 to London When this had been done.
 the fleet steamed six or seven miles off
 shore, where it lay to or cruised about
 for two nights and day
 1 As soon as the government had se- lected Caerdaff for bombardment imme- dlate measures were taken to remove the
 small garrisons and the inhabitants of the fishing village from possible danger. When the syndicates note was received by the commandant of the fort he was
 already in receipt of orders from the war
 office to evacuate the Notifications and
 to superintend the removal of the fisher
 men and their families to a point of safety farther up the coast
 Caerdatf was place difficult of access
 by land, the nearest railroad stations be-
 ing fifteen or twenty miles away, but on
 the day after the arrival of the syndi- cate's fleet in the of1ing thousands of people made their way to this part of the country. anxious to see-if perchance they might find an opportunity to safely see-what might happen at 10 o'clock the next morning. Officers of the army and navy, government officials, press correspondents in great numbers, and curious and anxious observers of all classes, hastened to the Welsh coast.
 The little towns where the visitors left the trains were crowded to overfiowing, and every possible conveyance by which the mountains lying back of Cardiff could be reached was eagerly secured, many persons, however. being obliged to depend upon their own legs. Soon after sunrise of the appointed day the forts. the village and the surrounding lower country were entirely deserted; and every point of vantage on the noun tains lying some miles back from the coast was occupied by excited spectators, nearly every one armed with a field glass.
 few of the guns from the fortifica- tons were transported to an overlooking height. in order that they might be brought into action in case the repeller instead of bombarding. should send men | ln boats to take possession of the evacu- ated Notifications. or should attempt any l mining operations. The gunners for this | battery were stationed at a safe place to the rear, whence they could readily reach their guns if necessary.
 The next day was one of supreme i'm portance to the syndicate. On this day it must make plain to the world, not only what the motor bomb could do, but that the motor bomb did what was done. Before leaving the English channel the director of Repeller Mo- Il had received telegraphic advices from both Europe and America indicating the general drift of public opinion in regard to the recent sea fight; and, besides these, many Eng fish and continental papers had been brought to him from the French coast.
 From all these the director perceived that the cause of the syndicate had in certain way suffered from the manner in which the battle in the channel had been Every newspaper urged that if the repeller carried guns capable of throwing the bombs which the syndicate proposed to use there was no reason why every ship in the British fleet should not have been destroyed. But as the repeller had not fired a single shot at the fleet, and as the battle had been fought entirely by tho crabs, there was every reason to believe that if there were such things as motor guns their range was very short, not as great as that of the ordinary dyna- mite cannon. The great risk run by one of the crabs in order to disable a dyna l mite gunboat seemed an additional proof of this.
 It was urged that the explosions in the water might have been produced by tor pedoes; that the torpedo boat which had been destroyed was so near the repeller '~As>s accomplish the damage that had been lone.
 To gainsay these assumptions was i'm oerative on the syndicate's forces. To firmly establish the prestige of the in- motor was the object of the var. Crabs were of but temporary ser rice. Any nation could build vessels ike them, and there were many means 'f destroying them. The spring armol vas complete defense against ordinary artillery, but it was not defense against torpedoes. The claims of the yndicate could be firmly based on noth. ng but the powers of absolute annihila- ion possessed by the instantaneous mo- or bomb.
 About o'clock on the appointed morn ng Repeller No. II, much to the surprise # the spectators on the high grounds with field glasses and telescopes, steamed way from Caerdaff. What this meant lobody knew, but the naval military ob- ervers immediately suspected that the yndicate's vessel had concentrated atten- ion upon Caerdaff in order to 20 over tol