The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-06-23
ConunuadO.

(Cont1nued.)
 It was a still, warm morning heavy with the soft, humid air that early spring lays on the cities of the sea- Suddenly that breeding, heavy air was shaken One! Two! Three!
 Afterward when men compared the time they knew that it was heard at the same instant at New York and Boston and all the stretches of coast between them and beyond. It was exactly half past 10 when the first shot sounded. The last boom was heard at II. Long before that bulletins had begun to tell that ships were sheIing the coast. Duxbury Beach, near Bos- ton. was being shelled. Long Branch and Asbury Park were bombarded. Amagansett on Long Island was in flames
 ..It has stopped said the bulletins then. The ships have ceased firing. .
 Then there came news from the har- bor defenses. Two ships, said Plum island at the east end of Long Island sound, had engaged the defenses at long range without effect A ship had come in east of Coney Island, just out side of the zone of fire from Sandy Hook, reported Fort Hamilton, and
 
 Now the crowds were silent no long CT. They stormed their city halls, roar ing for soldiers They tried to rush their armories, demanding weapons To Washington flashed the dreaded news of nobs. 'Troeps must be sent at once said the cities.
 The old chief of sta6, with s-the bit in his teeth.g dropped the dispatches on the floor Let em handle their own mobs, said he.
 Handle your own mobs, he said again to the boss from New York, who appeared with flaming face. seWei have swept together the stuff that you and your kind gave us in these past years. Up fheTes-he pointed north fin Connecticut cur officers have been dghking to make an army of it-of bat taldons that have no regiments, of dl- visions that are not divisions, of rifle men who never learned to shoot and of cavalry that never learned to maneu- yer But even if a4I that mess were not q messif all these young men were it to fight in the battle line this ndent-there are not enough of them to guard even the water. supply of New York and Boston.'s This state nnent is based on official calculations
 Then you won't put any men into the city7''
 .To defend city from within is an act Of desperation, no matter how big ones army is," said the general .-The place to defend city is as far away from 1t as you can meet the enemy
 But the newspapers say that you haven't men enough to stop him.
 Not if he comes in the force we ex pect-and he will be sure to come so And remember-the cities are not the United States Our business is to keep the army in the field for the Union, not for New York or Boston or even Wash ington. There is a price to be paid and perhaps the cities must pay tt-''
 There. in Connecticut lay the army, looking formidable enough It would have seemed a very harmonious, solid Iy welded whole. that army, to any lay man who could have had a birdseye view it's businesslfke assem- bly,, it's great parks of artillery, it's full corraIs of mounts. its endless rows of tents and eqdfpage and it's enormous trains of transport vehicles and ambulances.
 But at one end of that great, orderly, formidab1e camp were hordes of or ganized militia fling at targets. With the enemy on the coast. these men were still being broken in to shoot-not to become sharpshooters, but to quail fy merely as second class marksmen, that they might at least learn enough bout the use of their rifles to be not entirely useless in battle. [From tab ulated returns by the militia depart ments of twelve eastern states.1
 Into that camp had marched month before. with flags flying, bands gal lantly playing. weapons gleaming. one whole states militia organization of which only TOO men had fred regular Iy in practice during the whole preced- ing year. Only 525 of even that small number had qualified as shots, and more than a thousand were carried as utterly unqualified. Of that entire state force only one man had passed through the regular army qualification coursek with the rife. and only twelve had qualified at long range practice. fFrom annual reports of rife practice for 1914. militia organizations.
 Braveg' said the hapless general of brigade who had them under his hands. Brave? If we gave lem the order they would charge an army with their -aare hands sir-and they might as well 7
 He anuttered a sheet of paper in his ndfu. nd1Ey uSl. The sheet showed Z0,- 353 organized militia enrolled as train ed men armed with the rifie.'' Of these 1S.937 men had qualified sufficiently to be fit for firing in battle. There were a thousand men in that command whose records showed that they had sot fired their rifles a single time in year. and the general had reason to believe that many of these never had used weapons except as instruments of parade. ISee tabuIated returns pulp lished by war department 1915.l
 A mile away in the artillery encamp- uaenf field artillery battery of regu- lars from Fort Sill swept their guns at top speed through passages so tight that it seemed impossible for the fly ing wheels to clear them. Sharply they wheeled and came to position just aa militia battery arrived.