SHIPPING AS USUAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 16020, 11 September 1915, Page 8

SHIPPING AS USUAL.

MANY VESSELS SAIL. (Received September 10, 11 p.m.) London, September 10. During the past week 143S vessels arrived at or sailed from ports in the United Kingdom. Ten merchant vessels, aggregating 37,886 tons, were sunk, and four fishing vessels.

GERMAN MUEDE^ERS. MASSACRE IN A HOSPITAL. FRENCH OFFICIAL REPORT. The French commission, which was set up to verify acts committed by the Germans in violation «of international law, has issued a report which only emphasises the terrible findings of the Belgian Judicial Committee. Perhaps the piece de resistance of this report' is the narrative of the massacre of a great number of wounded in the Red Cross Hospital at Ette, which is told by M SeaUlot, a French military doctor. One morning, he says, the village was invaded by German troops. A lieutenant commanding 25 men visited the hospital. ] and left, saying that everything was right. j But the men became very excited and yelled, " This is a war to the death and the blowing out of brains." A minute or two later another officer rushed into the place and fired at Dr. Sedillot, who, luckily, struck up the arm of his assailant and received the bullet in his shoulder. In a fit of exasperation the officer fired two more shots, hitting the doctor in the right calf and the left arm. The officer then called to his men "Feuer!" FeuerP* (fire), and an indescribable scene of carnage followed. 1 "The Germans set fire to the hospital and obliged medical students and civilians who had escaped the bullets, and were lying on the floor feigning death, to run into the furnace, pushing them into the flames with their bayonets, while, they brought more hay to keep the fire. alive. Inside the hospital were between 60 and 80 wounded, most of them being unable to walk. Those' who tried to escape by jumping from the windows were immediately shot." *

Dr. Sedillot meanwhile had regained consciousness and witnessed what was happening, besides hearing the appeals of his compatriots for mercy. The Germans, as they put the wounded to death, laughed and continually shouted " Noch ein," (another one), as they fired at the victims. Finally Dr. Sedillot was able to jump out of the window and to crawl away to a cellar with a broken leg. The next day, with three soldiers, he was taken prisoner. While passing through the village they saw lying all around the bodies of the soldiers who had been shot. The doctor was taken to two different hospitals for treatment, and then to Ingelstadt, where he remained until March 21, when he was sent through to Switzerland, and thence home to France. He states in his evidence that between 100 and 120 soldiers were murdered by shooting or burning.

TURKISH BOAT'S ESCAPE. CHASED BY BRITISH SUBMARINE A letter from a German mechanic in Constantinople is published in the Yorwaerts, describing a rather interesting encounter in the Sea of Marmora ■with a British submarine. He says: "We were' steaming, a Turkish boat and ourselves, escorted by a torpedo vessel, towards the Dardanelles. The sea was like glass, and it was still bright sunshine. We were carrying 200 men, 200 horses, and a. number of motor-lorries. Towards 6 pjn. we passed a small island. Net & soul was thinking of submarines when, shortly before seven o'clock, our skipper noticed, about 600 metres away on the starboard side, a silvery streak approaching us at a tremendous speed. He at once realised it was a torpedo, blew the syren and ported the helm. The dangerous messenger missed us by barely five metres. It was an intensely exciting moment. Another missile tore past. We escaped. There was a tremendous report and an immense column of water spouted up at the bow of the , steaming in our wake. We feared the worst, but received the comforting signal : ' Continue .your course; damage only slight.* Not a periscope was to be seen, but now I was ordered to my engines, and instructed to get up pressure. I would not like to pass through another such period as I now experienced. The telegraph rang out constantly-chang-ing instructions, and the knowledge that death was steaming not many metres away was not comforting. The horses, too, became uneasy, and started kicking against their iron enclosures, but I clenched my teeth and concentrated my mind on the work in hand. I had some difficulty in getting my Turkish stokers and greasers to stick to their work, bat finally managed to restore their confidence by joking with them. We eventually reached Gallipoli. The air was continuously shaken by reports of distant thunder. It was the guns of the AngloFrench fleet, who apparently are suffering from a surfeit of ammunition. In two days wo start on the return journey."