Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1914-12-25

be incalculable. l should not care to
try to estimate the time it will take
the winner to recover from 1t; so years
is q moderate guess and means COM
paratively little except in suggestive
sense. The loser, I am convinced, will
scarcely ever recover from 1t. Bel
giuna 1t is true. is simply the wreck
Of land today, but am inclined to
believe the Belgians will rehabilitate
themselves q great deal faster than
people think. Theirs is fecund little
country; their houses are all Of stone.
and even those burned as q general
rule have walls and gable-ends still
standing"
Mr.. Cobb dismissed the question Of
atrocities.
Investigated Atroclty Stories.
The party of newspaper correspond
ents was with made a careful inves-
tigation Of every atrocity story that
reached US" he said. They were al
most invariably false, and in the few
cases that were true, exaggeration was
the rule. This applies to the stories
told by the Belgians of the Germans
and by the Germans of the Belgians
and French. OF course, when you take
any large body Of men, whether in war
or in peace, you will find among them
q certain percentage of detectives and
degenerates. We have atrocities in
New York city. so far as that Is con-
cerned. l am convinced that there
has been nothing unusually brutal
about the conduct Of this war-at
least, in the way of atrocities. War.
itself, is absolutely brutal. There is
no picturesQueness about 1t.
II have relegated the atrocity story
| to the limbo that contains the bayonet-
charge story. saw several hundred
thousand German soldiers, many of
them wounded. and thousands of Bel
gian, French and English prisoners.
i many of them also wounded; and be-
sides this I talked to doctors, who.
themselves. had attended to thousands
Of wounded. I did not see q single
bayonet-wound. and l did not hear of
any men who had been wounded by
bayonets. While l 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 q
comrades bayonet. Neither did hear
of any lance-wounds. Aside from the
early days of the war, there has been
very little cavalry-charging, think
Most of the wounded we saw had been
hit by shrapnd."
Need Of Censorship.
The talk turned to the censorship
and its merits and defects.
III one side or the other ever geta
the jump-gets It decidedly and indis
putably," remarked Mr.. Cobb, II be
lieve you will see that side let up on
the censorship. They will issue q gen
eral invitation to the press to come
on over and watch us eat up this fel
low OF course, l may be wrong. but
I shouldn't be surprised IL this hap
pened. AS for the censorship itself.
am ready to concede the need for Z
rigid supervision of the news in these
days of rapid transmission of informa
ton. But I can't see why the com
batants should be unwilling to allow
newspaper men at the front to sent
back the descriptive stun which Il
what the public cares for most. aftel
all. I believe that II more of this stuf
could be written. 1t would tend to In
crease patriotism and recruiting.
IT'S q hackneyed subject. to b,
sure, but am glad to say that the wa
correspondent as he has been known
the professional war correspondent
you understand, has been knocke'
ouf There ia a lot of talk about tn