The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1914-12-22

tnOuSdnQ German soldiers, many OF
,, them wounded, and thousands of Bel
gian, French and English prisoners,
! many of them also wounded; and be-
sides this l talked to doctors, who,
themselves, had attended to thousands
of wounded. l did not see a single
! bayonetwound, and l did not hear of
any men who had been wounded by
! bayOnets While | was in England
early in the campaign one soldier was
sent back from France with bayonet-
wound, but it came out that he had
been hurt accidentally by falling on a
comrades bayonet. Neither did hear
of any i!ance-wounds. Aside from the
early days of the war, there has been
very little cavalry-charging, l think
Most Of the wounded we saw had been
hit by shrapnel."
Need of Censorship.
The talk turned to the censorship
and its merits and defects.
IF one side or the other ever gets
the jump-gets it decidedly and indis-
putably," remarked Mr.. Cobb, Il be-
lieve you will see that side let up on
the censorship. They will issue gen.
eral invitation to the press to come
on over and watch us eat up this fell
low Of course, l may be wrong, but
| shouldn't be surprised if this hap
pened. AS for the censorship itself, |
am ready to cOncede the need for
rip ioi0 Of ~,
days of rapid transmission of informa-
ton. But l can't why the COM
batants ehould be unwilling to allow
newspaper men at the front to send
back the descriptive stuff which is
what the public cares for most, after
could be written, it would tend to in
crease patriotism and recruiting.
ITS a hackneyed subject, to be
sure, but am glad to say that the war
correspondent as he has been known,
the professional war correspondent,
you understand, has been knocked
out. There is lot of talk about the
glories that used to be his; how he
consulted with generals, and had his
tent pitched beside the field marshals.
and rode the best horse in the army,
and always knew what was going to
happen. Personally l think this is all
wrong. He probably was allowed to
come along On sufferance, and because
they had no wireless in those days,
and telegraph lines were scarce, he
had ss great deal more liberty of action
than he came to have later on. But
when all is said and done, the so-called
war correspondent hasn't any place in
the work Covering war is just the
same kind of work as covering a big
fire or any disaster. 1t calls for re-
porting. and ability to do the things
that reporting Notwithstanding of
the concrete facts and the writing of
them in lucid, terse language If l
were a newspaper proprietor, and l
! had to cover a war, l should simply
call up my best reporters and send
them out. And they would do the
work q great deal better than profess
siOnal war correspondents"
I Saw No 42-centinlete- Guns.
did you see any OF the 42-centi-
meter guns in action?"
NO. We saw the 21-centimeters on
the Aisne and before Antwerp, but We
never saw the 42-centimeters. We did
! hear great deal about the moral eff
! feet these big guns had, though. Sur
geons told us they had cases of men
who were not hit, but who suffered
| complete nervous breakdown simply
from the shock of the explosion of the
big shells. It's odd the effect that war
! has on nervous temperaments. AL
phonse Courlander, who was Paris cor
respondent of the London Daily Elk
F: press, went all to pieces and died
| from nervous breakdown brought on
by the stress and horrors all around
him.
"Odd, wasn't it? And Courlander
had been correspondent in several
other wars, in which he had been
actually under fire, so it was not a
new sensation to him. I suppose it
was just the appalling, awful bigness
of this greatest of human tragedies.
1t doesn't matter how much you talk
about this war, or what phase you
| take up; in the end you come around
to the starting point. the inconceivable
immenseness of it. No man can grasp
it all. No man can take in completely
the horrors, the splendors, the suffer
ing, and the glory of it. I saw the
! German army that attacked the Brit
ish, Sat Mons, marching through Brus-
sells, hundreds of thousands Of men,
hour after hour, day and night But
could not convey an adequate i'm
preston of that sight to you. 1t is
impossible. I have an impression
locked up inside me, but shall never
be able to give it to others. Nobody
could. 1t was like all the other events
in this war-beyond the power of one
mans brain to comprehend"