Norwich bulletin., 1918-07-24
FACTS AND COMMENT

not graceful nor pretty. Few of the curves naturally associated with naval architecture are in evidence, but from fazor-like bow to square cut stern the plan is one of straight lines and plane surfaces. The structure of the boats IS as unusual as the design Not a forging, rolled beam or shape is used. but frames, beams and angles are pressed cold from sheet steel by pow erfui automatic machinery. Other sheets are cut and bent to form the plates. The finished parts are alike even to the rivet holes, and the boats
 Z04 feet long, are assembled twenty four at time in one huge building covering thirteen acres. They are built on great rolling platforms in three rows eight in row, and the work is so timed that the first in line is the first ready for launching. Each boat is lowered into the water, plat form and all, by a great hydraulic elevator, and as she leaves her place in the line, the seven remaining boats are moved forward one space so that another keel may be immediately laid at the rear end of the line. The entire plant has been conceived and built since February. By the end of July A1r Ford promises launchings at the rate of one day, while the entire 200 are to be completed before the year is out. The finished Eagles may | reach the Atlantic by either the St. Lawrence or the Erie canal. They will be shallow enough to go anywhere, big enough to keep the sea in all weathers l and fast enough to cut circles about any U-boat yet produced.
 l An investigation of the ownership of the New York Evening Mail, long suspected Of being pro- German, is now in progress at the instigation of A l Mitchell Palmer, custodian of alien property. Dr. Rumely. the proprietor, had made affidavit to Mr Palmer that | the Evening Mail was an American
 owned paper, but evidence in hand ] tends to show that a controlling in 1 terest was purchased by the imperial l German government in 1915 shortly 1 after the sinking of the Lusitania. To cover up all traces of the transaction, the money was paid through a success 1 sion of New York banks, exactly as was done in the case of the Bolo funds l expended for the purchase of the Paris i Journal After the transfer of the Evening Mail, it's questionable loyalty caused so great a decline in its sub scribers and adv ertisers, that Ger many has been obliged to contribute largely and constantly in order to keen the paper going at all, so that all told this venture in American Journalism
 has cost the Kaiser well on toward 3 million and a half. sOther evidence gathered in the course of the investi- gation would indicate that 30 millions was appropriated by the German gov | ernment to influence American public
 opinion and deter us from entering the
 war. Now that we are in, the danger
 of secret German ownership in any : American paper is even more subtitle Though no publication in America would dare to openly avow Germany:
 cause any longer, the insidious infu ence must be constantly guarded against that it be not able to smootl
 the way for the acceptance of the neX
 German peace offer.
 It is only within few days that tn American forces in France have beel t receiving mustard gas shells in suffici s ent quantities to be really effectiv
 and now the opposing Germans ar
 enjoying a state of their own villain ous medicine. Not only that, but tn . gas of U. $ manufacture is a quarte [ more poisonous than the German vari g ety,-a real case of out heroding Hero6 9 The introduction of gas has perhap I. been the most important contribution
 to the offensive side Of warfare sine
 the invention of gunpowder. 1t is ia
 more effective than shrapnel; once tn shrapnel shell explodes the damage i a done, but gas fingers always for hour 2 and mustard gas is sometimes effeetiv t for four days. The onward sweep 0 t all the great German offensives has i 2 each case been due to the use of thi l Iis,,ff f-1 6Ar . man back at Cambrai by whic ' rthey regained nearly all the groun lost to the British in the Battle of tn 0 Tanks, was made possible by forcin e the evacuation of Bourbon Wood b q filling it with mustard gas. In Apr = of this year the Flanders salient wa Q created by making Armentieres unten l. able in the same way. The over + whelming of the supposedly impregna N ble French position of the Chemin de 5 Danes resulting in the creation of .th e salient on the Marne was simila II 3 brought about by the use of gas shell d Oddly enough mustard gas isn't If gas at all but a liquid that slow Id volatilizes like turpentine. The odc
 is not unpleasant and the stuff lool
 innocent enough but a drop of it C
 1
 causes a deep burn, while it pla! r. havoc with lungs and windpipe
 n breathed for any length of time, u
 terly incapaeitating the soldier for a,
 ton, causing great suffering and, evt
 if the victim reeovers in hoSpite ,il leaving him susceptible to pheumon Ill and tuberculosis. More than half u
 shells now used in the bombarime
 that precedes an infantry assault a, le gas shells. Against these the fir V masks were not effective, but equippt
 with the latest type of protector O
 nlFn can endure such an ordeal f re hours In the fourth and greate st German attack, that of July 18th, tl a. Americans not only stood their groul
 but even organized a counter-a alta
 the same day and hurled the chen back across the Marne, a testimony ot the firmness of the American soldi q and the adequacy of the equipme in devised for his protection.
 The Germans loudly proclaim ,st friendensturm (storm of peace) h ut been anything but that. The fiji ,sf chapter opened early in the merni
 Of Monday, July 18th, and was q
 hnitely checked on the American fro
 that very day when the forces tn
 had succeeded. III crossing the f1V P were hurled back to the northern bar he Though some Teuten successes we h. registered on other parts of the six
 mile line. the German advance "
 finished by Wednesday night, a ut then it was the turn of Gen. Foch. had deliberately waited until all t h German divisions that were lik,
 to be thrown into the fray had h ah their share of the same bloody Ire;
 ment that was experienced, by t
 first shock troops and then he stru lat hard and suddenly all along the we ma ern side of the deen salient To 2