The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1916-04-07
SOME zRPPaLIN HUMoRs

SOME ZEPPELIN HUMORS
It isn't altogether pleasant, Of
course, on going to bed, to know
that half a ton Of lyddite may drop
from the clouds during the highland
blow you into Kingdom cotde. 1t
is calculated to give new direction
to the dreams that fit through the
sleeper's mind and worry the psy-
biologists about whence they come
and whittier they go.
Still, our British friends--or. en-
emies, il you happen to feel that way
have been right cheerful about the
Zeppelin business: Everybody in
London who has missed one Of the
spectacles sits up o. nights in hope
of being in on the next performance,
or else hopes the war will be sure to
last long enough to give him a
glimpse Of the greatest aerial per-
formance ever shown under any tent.
The Britishers have become SO
amused with the Zeps that there
isn't even decent measure of ner-
vousness over them.
The other evening flock Of them
dropped things on the northeast
English counties. The British an
nouncement says one child was killed;
eight persons were injured; no mill
tary and little other damage was
done. But from Berlin comes the
usual detailed account Of great de-
struction. A battery north Of Hull
was put out of action; an iron works
with blast furnaces at Whitby was
destroyed; factories and railroad sta
tions around Leeds were attacked
with good results"
The German statement of damage
done is not so detailed as usual
probably because the inventor of the
report had overworked his imagina-
tnon on some earlier ones. These
German accounts Of the Zeppelin
raids, with their marvelously COM
plete data about things that the avi-
ators couldn't possibly know, are
only more wonderful than the utter
incapacity Of the German admiralty
to learn about the doings of its sub
marines. It is passing strange that
after a submarine has blown up a
neutral or an unarmed belligerent
ship there is never any information
about it at the admiralty in Berlin;
while on the other hand that same
admiralty knows just exactly what a
Zeppelin hit, how much damage il
did, and all details concerning it's
performance.
OF course, the explanation is
simple enough. In the case Of sub
marines, the admiralty holds back all
admission of knowledge until il
knows just how much the outside
world is going to be able to learn;
then the German explanation, il
any, is adjusted to make the German
case the best possible. II there isn't
any way to make it look good, bet
ter, or best-as in the Sussex affair
then Berlin utterly denies all respon-
sibility. The fact that pieces of a
German torpedo were found on the
Sussex is immaterial; Berlin says a
German didn't do it; and that's the
end.
The complete and lurid accounts OF
Zeppelin successes are manifestly
manufactured for home consumption
in Germany. They are SO funny that
the British censorship always per.
mits them to be printed in full, and
the whole United Kingdom chuckles
over them. The truth probably il
that Zeppelin operations have cost
Germany more lives and more money
than they have lost to Germany'l
enemies. But the people, believing
that perfidious Albion must be con
quered and that this is the weapon
to do it, are being fired to the yea
Of crusaders with the stories of Yep
pelin successes.