Norwich bulletin., 1917-03-09
STORES OF THE WAR
Falmouth Crowded With shlss.


 mote shipping outpost of Falmouth. England. The harbor is crowded with American, Dutch and Scandinavian craft of all kind, great liners of some of the trans Atlantic companies, freighters. tankers and tranps in all rigs and flags. It is the busiest ship ping time Falmouth has seen since the old packet days, almost hundred then died down until the port was |considered pretty dead from a shipping standpoint. Just now the declaration of the German war zones has sent more ships scurrying into the harbor. for the memorandum to the German note even specified Falmouth by name as offering some possible exemption from the scourge. Falmouth more than aEy port is wit messing how the war is changing trade routes and trade ports. particularly along the Channel where the subma- rine menace has practically closed the old ports for transatlantic travel not ably at Cherbourg, Havre and Bou- logne on the French side, and South ampton and Dover on the English. And even Bordeaux has fallen in the danger zone under the new menace. So that Falmouth while having no act ed the advantage of it's geographical position in absorbing the shipping closed out from many other ports.
 The port is at the very tip of south west England, just abreast of the about the first land sighted in com ing across the Atlantic. It is just east of the Lizard, from which point the arrival of liners is first reported. the same ,as from Sandy Hook. It is ad- 1acent, too, to the Po1dau wireless station which from this outpost sends it's wireless across the Atlantic ana to ships at sea. Nearby is PenZance. where the pirates lived and further on f- 4Inn af TlTok
 Thus located at the very junping-o point of England and the western most harbor of the channel, Falmouth has a minimum of submarine danger and at the same time is something like Montauk Point, Long Island, in reach ing far out to sea and thus permit ting quick emergency rail connections with the metropolis lying further in- land. These various advantages ahve combined to bring back Falmouth to It's old-time shipping glory and to crowd the harbor with the ships of all nations save those of the enemy.
 One of these newcomers. an Amer ican tanker, has just gone ashore in the outer harbor and is slowly going to pieces before the heavy surf. There has been no loss of life, but Falmouth is deeply aroused for scum of American oil has spread over the sur
 'It's one of the worst things ever happened to us," said an old authori- ty of the port. "The oil has got into our oyster beds, among the best in England, and probably killed them for good. It has also killed off all the fish, and even the fish that are living can't be eaten, they taste so Of oil. We've had a big boom from the war, but this oil on the water has set it all back. It's a serious danger too. for at some points it has caught on fire and spread a sheet of flame far over the water
 This, however, is only one of the passing incidents of the strenuous sea life in times of war. But the lasting thing for Falmouth is the great inn petus to shipping and the crowd of ships from all over the world now heading it in and out of the port. The rush has been so great that the port have put on very rigid vading the town at night. Only the master of the merchant craft come ashore at any time; all the crews are marooned aboard day and night. No small boats from the visiting ships can be afoat after five o'clock in the aft ernoon. Any master or other persons from the ships in town after that is subject to arrest.
 But the strangest ships in this crowded harbor are two which loom up high on either side of a liner as 1t comes from tn etrip over the Atlantic. These two enormous hulks look like fighting decks and triple lines of port holes for heavy guns. The British en- sign is snapping from the peak of both these craft, and yet, clearly, they can not possibly be warcraft of the present as inquiry proves, for they