New-York tribune., 1918-06-30

in the gate every one uses these bits Of
paper. To present a friend with a box
of matches is like giving him pound of
sugar, than which there is no more precious
gift.
Out along the front we saw numberless
howltzers and cannon. They didn't look like
the work OF women, those funny striped
things, like the Strengthened necks of giant
graffes.
But all through Britain, in the big plants
where guns are made, women work at the
making of them Women in their brown
jackets and peg-top overalls And there
are no more alert, bright-eyed people in
the empire than the women workers in the
munitions factories and foundres. "Women's
place is in the home" of big guns and high
explosives over there. And they seem to
work over these eath-dealing monsters
with something of an affectionate care. Per-
haps they love these guns because thew
love the men who use them.
What makes London air raids so dan
gerous to life and limb is the hail Of
shrapnel from the defence guns. Bombs
from Hun planes fall only here and there.
ohrapnei falls everywhere. Ever since the
law OF gravity was discovered it has been
clear mat whatever goes up must come
down. And every bit of shrapnel fired into
the air at the raiders comes down to pelt
the defenders themselves. Almost anv par-
tlcle OF this falling shrapnel would kill
man II 1T struck him on the head. It comes
square to three and four inches in diameter
ana always there are sharp, Jagged edges
to pierce unprotected persons.
That is why it is so advisable to seek
shelter when raid begins 1t isn't cow
ard1ce to seek shelter. 1t is simply good
sense.
When the American Labor Mission was in
England some of the members were able
TO witness one of the most formidable of
these raids. John p Frey, one of the mem
oers of the mission, has several pieces of
shrapnel that fell during this raid He
admits that he was unwise to remain in
the open through it all, but having escaped
injury he is happy The bit of iron that
Frey cherishes most is piece that fell
just outside the bedroom of Princess Mary
the piece that crashed down ten feet from
his own person half as much
Frey denies that he went prowlinp
through the palace gardens to get his SOU
venr. He declares that it was given to him
by the "bobby' on duty there, with whom
he made fast friends.
Hunnishness is too we'll established both
as a practice and as an adjective, to need
more proof. But, nevertheless, one is likely
to wonder if the practice is true to type
along the American front.
Onr mission to France was not to in
vestigate atrocities, but one cannot 90 to
France without hearing of atrocities We
did hear about them--and we heard about
them along the American front. Let me
make this clear; we heard about atrocities,
but did not investigate atrocities.
Sometimes you can sense the truth of a
thing without going through a process of
scientific analysis. So it was when an
American army officer told me this: A
wounded Hun had been taken to an Ameri-
can hospital, captive. In due time the Hun
recovered. He was about tc be taken from
the hospital to prison camp. On the
point Of departure the Hun asked if he
might go and thank the nurse who had
cared for him. He was given permission,
and went alone to where the nurse was.
He stopped toward her quickly, grasped
both her arms and wrists and elbows and
snapped the bones across his knee.
"He was shot before he had gone eight
feet" said the officer, with a snap to his
jaws
And another: Two American prisoners
were horribly mutiated by the Huns after
having been stripped of their clothes. Then
they were sent reeling across No-Man's
Land to the American trenches, so that
Americans might see what it meant to op-
pose the Kaiser's will. Opposition to the
Kaiser's will is about the most vigorous
thing in France in that particular bit of
trench.
Many such accounts were given u.s.. These
serve to illustrate. 1t needs no learned
psychologist to tell what such things are
going to mean along the American frht-
ing front.