New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-03-30

You cannot be long in Venice without
feeling that you are in the war zone. The
dominant noise is the purr Of the motor en-
CINE; all day long, from sunrise to sunset,
the buzz never ceases either on the water
or in the air. from military motor boats or
fying machines of various kinds-velivoli,
"sail-fyers," the poet d'Annunzio wishes to
call them, but the word has not caught on
with the people, at least, and they have re-
duced the troublesome aeropani to the
handy replani, and that is what they are
now called. Watch is kept. day and night,
by sentinels posted on the higher roofs,
who signal to each other every half hour
through megaphone, "AlP aria buona
euardia" ("Good watch aloft). The threat OF
a raid is never absent, except in foul wealth
err or on pitch dark nights, for Venice lies
so near the scene of action on the Carso.
only sixty or seventy miles away, that she
offers a tempting target for the wrath
aroused by each new success of Italian arms.
The city has been bombarded from the air
twenty-one times since the war began. From
May q to November Z, 1915, there were
eight attacks, all of them, except two, by
daylight, usually in the early hours of the
morning: this year there have been thlr-
teen, including small affair on November
II, and there seems TO have been ere
scendo in their ferocity and in the size of
the bombs.
Specific Points Aimed At
It Is clear that some attempt has been made
to aim at specific points-the station, the
arsenal, the cotton mill--except, perhaps,
during the violent attack which followed the
fall of Gorilla, when bombs were freely
sprinkled over the town, but, in any case, the
height at which the aeoplanes fly makes the
incidence of the bombs matter largely of
chance. The raids were all carried out by
aeropanes, and lasted, on an average, about
an hour. The warning of an impending raid
is given, if in the daytime, by the long,
melancholy wall of sirens, followed by three
cannon shots; if after dark, by the extinction
OF the electric lights as well.
Although great pains have been taken to
prevent accidents by putting wooden bar
riers near the bridges, where the pedestrian,
on moonless nights, might miss the steps
and walk into the canal, the number OF
deaths from drowning Is said to have ex-
ceeded the slaughter by bombs. You are
not supposed to be out of doors during an
attack, and many of the larger and more
substantial houses have been requlsitioned
as "cties of refuge" whose doors must be
opened on the first alarm 20 receive the
passersby and the screaming crowd of
women and children who flock TO them from
the Aimsier dwellings of the poor. All this
worry, coupled with the absolute stagnation
Of the port and the business depending on
il, the destruction of the cotton mill by in
cendiary bombs, the absence of tourists and
the closing of hotels, is naturally trying the
people of Venice very severely-in fact,
Venice is the one big city of Italy that feels
the strain of war; yet its inhabitants are
coming now TO bear it admirably. They
seem to have settled down to a semi-stoical
acceptance of war and the consequences it
entails in the war zone, not without n sus-
tanning pride in the thought that, whatever
may be happening in other cities of Italy,
they. at all events, know what sacrifices war
implies, and are ready TO face them.
Nevertheless, up to the present time many
palaces and five churches have been injured
some of them irreparably. . ..
The fantastic design of the Ducal Palace
light coonnsdes on the ground and first
floors, carrying a solid block of heavy ma
sonry above-renders the building liable TO
irreparable damage should an angle-column,
or indeed any columns of the arcades. be
blown in. The angles have now been complete
~ encased and buttressed in brick. and this
fancy of the Italian architect or the neces-
sity OF the problem the need TO ncose all
the abundant and projecting sculpture of the
angles, has given rise to several engaging
episodes in the brickwork Of these protec-