The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1914-12-27
MOVIES OPEN
IN WAR TOWN
People Crowd in Front OF the Theatre
In Spite Of the Great Battle
Which is Going
THE OWL IN CHURCH
Cannon Ball Tore Its Home to Pieces
and Flock Of Ravens Took
Advantage Of the
Situation.
THE OWL IN CHURCH

by William G. Shepherd, United
Press Staff Correspondent
LONDON, Dec. 8. (By mail to New
York Happy, happy day! The
movies in Przemysl have opened
again! when l was in Przemysl
saw that good old American word,
film" sandwiched in between this odd
"dziz!" and the musical "wojenny"
on hurriedly painted signs that per.
wade the city and had evidently been
put up over night. It means in Pol
ish attention, war films!" The artil-
lery may be waring outside the forti
fications but Przemysl can't be in such
"a hopelessly bad plight, after all,
with the movies running'
In this soldier filed city the movie
comes as a Godsend, for a soldier
among his other killing, has overmuch
to slay. You could look up the little
cross street Koshiosko from the main
avenue and see the street blocked with
soldiers and with scores OF men and
women and pretty Jew girls who were
waiting to buy tickets for the first
movie show since the siege. It was
Just such a little cross street as this
in Vera Cruz that was the mecca of
movie lovers and l remember the day
last April when the street signs,
I"Ojo! Peliculas de la guerra" love the
had returned in the Mexican port and
that the movies were ION the job
again. The American soldiers swarm
ed patiently around the entrance in
the hot sunshine just as these befur-
Ired Austrian and Hungarian soldiers
huddle in the cold under white arc
light.
It was only 400 O'Clock in the aft
ernoon, incidentally and night has
fallen which provokes the observa-
ton that this land of long evenings
must be fine for movie owners.
/ went out into the suburbs near
the outer forts and came upon an old
church from which the steeple had
been blown away by Russian shell.
The building had been half unshing-
led; the clock dial lay on the ground,
covered with mud; the tip OF the
steeple formed Of heavy tfmbers had
come down point first, like an arrow,
and buried its nose in the ground,
tcrumpling the steel cross into mass
of twisted bars. In the air above me
heard a terrific chattering Of birds.
II saw a small, white owl.s flying
around in the daylight, pitch blind,
icolliding with branches land tree
| trunks and, now and then striking the
walls of the church. 1t was being pur-
/, sued by six black ravens that swooped
at it from all directions. In all this
war in Europe there has never been a
more desperate monoplane battle than
this one. l have seen two areoplane
battles in the sky, thus far, but Meth
er of them was more fascinating than
this. The owl had no means of de-
Tense. 1t could only grope it's way
Through the air, the sunshine blinded
1t; all of the odds ware against the
little white bird that had been driven
by Russian shell from its dark
home in the belfry 1t was like seeing
| 'EiiOSl III Illo IlulC, IL ndu uo
place in the daylight and the ravens
were bouncing on 1t like detectives
breaking up a fake mediums seance,
Eof course the ravens who sleep
o'nights, instead of hooting around in
the darkness. had never before seen
such sight as this stubby-nosed big
feyed, white bird and it was perhaps
human of them to try to destroy what
they couldn't understand. But the
providence that watches over spar
rows had it's eye also on this little,
white war-wormed owl. An extra high
| sweep brought it above the yawning
! hole in the church roof and while a
raven was trying for a nibble at it's
odd little crown of feathers, the owl
swooped into the welcome darkness,
through the splintered timbers and
+. the ravens mounted guards on the
| roof beam and held meeting.
Perhaps they discussed strategy, or
maybe it was psychological research,
but anyhow the white owl was safe
and the chances are that not even n
Russian bomb will drive him out into
the daylight again.
!