THE SKETCHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3234, 8 March 1916, Page 71

THE SKETCHER.

SCALLYWAG HEROES.

WASTRELS THAT MAKE GOOD

Most of us have known young fellows, full of animal spirits, who have rebelled against the conventions and the humdrum monotony of everyday life. They yearned for freedom and adventure, and usually ended by kicking over the traces of parental control, and either sowing their wild oats in this country or going abroad in search of adventure. So it is at least in the piping times of peace. In times of war they end their less fortunate brother scallywags know where to find excitement and adventure, and to their credit be it said they are quick to seize the opportunity. Nor is it only the superabundant vitality and zest for adventure that make them seek the excursions and alarms of war. Even scallywags have higher and loftier motives that carry them through the shock of battle and make many of them into heroes. The love of country and the love of his fellowman is not incompatible with a past that will not always bear investigation, and is in some need of redemption. There are many young lads who are unfortunate in their upbringing and early environment. Some remarkable stories_ of scallywags who have made good during the war are told by Mr Holmes, the wellknown London missionary and probation officer.

—On the Trawlers.—

Take the case, for example, of the boy Mr Holmes speaks of as Peter. The son of parents who had drifted apart, his was a wretched upbringing. His father ignored his existence, and the man who had taken his father's place disliked and abused the lad. As for Peter's mother, she was far too busy trying to drown her own sorrows in drink to lavish much care on her son.

Naturally the lad, living in such an evironment, and with such examples before him, rapidly developed into a young wastrel. Eventually he was caught by the police along with a gang of other young fellows in the act of robbing a warehouse. Peter was handed over to Mr Holmes, who secured him woi'k. " I got him on a ship," says Mr Holmes. "He was happy there from the first day. When the call came he was able to render the valuable service of an experienced deck hand in seeking to clear the sea of mines."

Peter wrote home to his friend describing how mines are fished "up and disposed

"The trawlers," the lad concluded, "draw about 12ft of water, and sometimes strike a mine, though the mines are generally laid deeper. When a trawler strikes, it is mostly all up. If she is lucky, and the explosion is forward under the bows, she may be towed into harbour; but if she strikes amidships or in. the stern she has no chance, and the men in engine and boiler room have a poor lookout. We on deck always feel that we have the best job of it, in spite of the cold and wet."

In less than two months from writing that letter Peter's short life had come to an end. The trawler struck a mine one dark night, there was a tremendous explosion, and she sank in a few seconds. No one will ever know exactly how death found Peter, but at least if he began life as a scallywag, he died the death of a hero—he died for his country. Another of the probation officer's proteges was a boy whom he calls George. Of humble origin and unpromising material, the stern test of war proved him to possess the highest kind of heroism.

Mine-sweeping.—

George was terribly handicapped in the race of" life by the neglect of a drunken father and the influence of a vicious stepmother. He made his first appearance in court for stealing a piece of pork pie to satisfy flie hunger of his little brother. Some time later he pilfered bread and cheese from a grocer's shop, hunger and his brother's need again being the motive. Two years afterwards he offended again in much the same manner, and was ordereda flogging by the magistrate. Eventually work was procured for him, but owing to the greed and cruelty of his parents he remained as ill-fed and illclothed as before, a forlorn figure, more sinned against than sinning. His love for his brother stood out, however, apparently the one noble thing in a life of failure.

At last the little brother died, and George, inconsolable, expressed a desire to get "right away." "He went to sea on a tramp steamer," writes the probation officer. "Twice he came back to the city, calling to see me before going back to his ship. On each occasion his tears were very near; he had been to look ot his brother's grave." On the outbreak of war George volunteered to serve on a mine-sweeping trawler. He "was not unaware of the danger—in fact, he may be considered _ to have been physically weak and afraid; but ho had that higher, finer courage of which heroes are made. In one of his last letters he wrote : "I never seem to get used to the danger. I'm so frightened that I can't often sleep proper. It goes off when you're hard at work; but when the excitement's over it's just as bad as ever again. If it wasn't for thinking poor folk's food depends on us keeping the sea _ clear, I'm sure I should run away first time I came into port again." Physically timid, the supremo hour of trial and danger proved that George was made of sterling stuff. " George was the prdy one lost when the boat blew up," wrote his skipper a fortnight*later. "And he gave up the bit of board that would have wived him so as to let a chap have it who was so badly hurt that he couldn't swim." "Poor old George! lie never nade yay shout about his pluck, and we most

of us thought him a bit of a coward; but he showed us after he was a game 'un, and no mistake."

The Four Gunners. —

Tommy Atkins is sometimes guilty of offences which under the military code are heinous, but which to civilian eyes do not seem very serious. One of the most amazing and amusing instances of " desertion " that the war has afforded was that of four gunners of the R.F.A., who were stationed at Folkestone.

One sunny afternoon the men hired a row boat and put out to sea. Hours elapsed, and they did not return, and it was feared they had met with disaster. The night passed, but next day, to everybody's surprise and relief, they were landed at Folkestone by the steamer Le Nord from Calais.

It transpired that the four gallant fellows were so anxious to '/have a whack at the Huns" that they resolved to row to Calais. For hours they tugged at the oars of their little craft, but, unused to rowing, they made but little progress. _ At last, however, when night was falling, they were picked up by a French fishing boat. The gunners were well treated, slept on board the craft, and were duly landed at Calais. There, however, the story of their exploit was quickly noised abroad and came to the ears of the British military authorities. The errant artillerymen were ordered on board a Britishbound steamer, and, as we have seen, arrived back at Folkestone. Needless to say, the military authorities at Folkestone were impressed by the enthusiasm of the men, and let them off very lightly for their audacious exploit.

—The Deserter's Return.—

One morning a man entered an Edin burgh Police Office and said to the aston ished official at the bar:

"I have come right back from New York to give myself xip as a deserter." After some inquiry it was found that the man had deserted from a Scottish regiment five years before. An officer's letter that he had read reprinted in an American paper appealed to his patriotism, and fired his martial ardour. . He had straightaway secured a job on a liner and worked his passage across the Atlantic, determined to do his bit for Britain.

Who will say that this man, in a military sense a scallywag, had not more than purged his offence and proved himself in his humble way a hero? There have been many others who have wiped out on the field of battle the stain of disgrace. The story is told of a soldier, who shall be nameless, who was found guilty of sleeping at his post in face of the enemy. His offence is one of the gravest in time of war, and he was sentenced to death. He had been under fire in the trenches, for four days and nights, and was utterly exhausted; but, alas! there is no excuse for sleeping at one's post. The poor fellow was to be shot at dawn, but during the night he disappeared. He had "deserted" or escaped, but he had not run away. Like the gallant fellow he was he took part in some fighting against the enemy. He was seriously wounded and was picked up by stretcher-bearers. Taken to a field hospital far from his regiment's position he was eventually conveyed to London. He duly recovered and was given a week's furlough. But still he did not run away. When his leave expired he rejoined his old regiment. Well, of all the infernal impudence, to come back like this!" cried his sergeantmajor, in amazement, when he saw him. What was to be done with a man who was condemned to death, had escaped, and now coolly returned and gave himself up? The commanding officer was consulted. A man who, in face of a death sentence. would return to duty must have good stuff in him, he thought. The sentence was withdrawn and reduced, and its carrying out was deferred under the Suspended Sentences Act, a measure intended to give erring soldiers a chance of retrieving their reputation. Jt was only in keeping with the character of this brave fellow that by an act, of gallantry in the field he afterwards wiped his sentence off the slate.

—Borstal Boys.—

It would seem that the fiery ordeal of war has an ennobling and elevating influence on erring souls, or is it that, amid the horror and gloom of battle, deeds of heroism and self-sacrifice, and the spiritthat prompts them stand out the more boldly by contrast. Take, for instance, the cases of the young men who have got into trouble and been detained in Borstal and similar reformatory prisons. No fewer than 340 of these were selected to be allowed to enlist. Of these 35 —more than 10 per cent.—have attained non-commissioned rank, and 16 have been severely wounded or have laid down their lives for King and country. Of one of this last gallant band of scallywag heroes his officer wrote from "somewhere in France":

"Lance-corporal was in my company, and perhaps I had more to do with him than the other officers. No one could wish for a braver or better young soldier than he. If volunteers were asked for—whether to take a patrol out to the enemy's trenches, or to fix up barbed wire in front of our own lines—he was always one of the first to offer his services. He was shot through the head while firing over the parapet, and killed instantly." Nor is this fine spirit by any means confined to men of our own race. It was to be 'found wherever free men are to be found who are eager to fight, and if need be to die, for country and for freedom. —The Criminal Hero.— The strange and romantic story of Alexandre Victor Menu, the young Frenchman, is a proof that the scallywag hero is not peculiar to any Tace or clime. As a youth he belonged, to be quite frank, to that peculiarly French typo of scallywag—the Apache. He got into trouble before he was 19, and in 1900 he was sentenced to 10 years' hard labour for a

selection of crimes. He left his country for his country's good, and was sent out to the penal settlement in French Guiana. Like all true scallywags, his was a turbulent spirit. He objected to hard labour and to restraint. He escaped, and was recaptured twice, and was finally sentenced to six extra years of hard labour. This was the last straw. Alexandre Victor made up his mind to escape once and for all, and laid his 'plans accordingly. He made friends with a fellow prisoner, and between them they stole a boat and got clear away. For over a month they wandered about in the virgin forest, living on roots and fruit, and at last Menu's friend died of privation. Our hero himself, more dead than alive, managed to work his way to Venezuela. Then his luck changed. He gob work with a timber company, and was passing rich on £l2 a month pay and a hut of his own. He was even thinking of marrying, when he heard that Germany had declared war on France.

Instantly he forgot he was a convict, and remembered he was a Frenchman. He took the first boat back to France, and volunteered for service in the colonial infantry. The colonel of his regiment ordered inquiries to be made, and Menu wag questioned. He was quite frank. "Yes," he said. "I am a convict. I escaped, and I returned to France to fight for her." Then he burst into tears. The officials shook hands with him, and bade him be of good cheer; but they locked him up, as no convict is allowed to serve in the army. There he remains pending further inquiry.

"If I am not allowed to go and fight," he says, "I shall escape again and enlist under another name."

What more eloquent plea for the scallywag hero could be imagined than the simple but moving story of this devoted fellow who asks only to redeem his past by fighting for his beloved country? HOW BRITAIN NEGLECTED HER CHANCES. THE TRAGEDY OF REJECTED IDEAS. No war has like the present demonstrated the efficiency of mechanical appliances as aids to victory. Credit must be given to the Germans that they perceived this mechanical trend and gave it every scope for development and operation. They have carried the theory of mechanical superiority to the absolute limit of practicability." The British, on the other hand, have had to learn by bitter experiences what the Germans foresaw and adopted timeously, and thereby acquired enormous advantages in the field. This aspect of war—the foresight of one side to adoptnew ideas—forms one of the most interesting chapters in military history. Clever, astute inventors have never been slow to perceive the suitability of great developments in mechanical and engineering science when applied to war; but, unfortunately, in Britain at least, they have had a sorry time battling with War Office and Admiralty officials in vain efforts to impress them with the utility of their ideas.

Let us look at some of the great tragedies in rejected ideas to which officialdom in Britain blinded its eyes. One wonders what the course of events, what the history of this country might otherwise have' been if British inventors had not had their efforts trammelled and defeated by official red tape and stupidity!

Dundonald's Poison Gas. —

Everybody knows the story of Lord Dundonald's rejected prescription for making Avar with inevitable success. His formula was rejected and thrown among discarded papers generations ago in the archives of the War Office. It was dragged forth from its oblivion a number of years ago and published in a London magazine. From this source, be it said, the Germans derived the idea of employing poisonous gases, which they put into operation last year. Perhaps in this case we may pardon officialdom for rejecting the scheme, inasmuch as it meant reversion to barbarism; but we can hardly forgive them their insensate stupidity for attempting to ruin and disgrace Lord Dundonald. After his brilliant naval exploits he was, on return home, arrested and charged with fraud. He was sentenced to imprisonment} deprived of all his naval honours, and subjected to comnlete political, naval, and social degradation. Some of the ablest judges in England took up his case, and succeeded, after a long struggle, in having the sentence quashed, but, as a great legal authority declared, the case remained as "one of the blackest pages in the judicial history of England." The Steamship Rejected.—

A century ago Henry Bell, the inventor of the Comet steamship, submitted plans to the Admiralty proposing the adoption of steam propulsion in the navy, which, he indicated, would render ships of war superior to tides and winds. One man alone in the naval service supported the idea. He was no less than the mighty Lord Nelson. He pleaded with the Admiralty to adopt the Clyde man's idea, warning them that if they rejected itother nations would adopt it, and so " vex every vein in this country." But the Admiralty were too wise, even for Lord Nelson." The steamship idea was to them a fool's clowning, and not until long years afterwards did circumstances compel them to go back on this decision. It is a singular coincidence that Napoleon, when he was contemplating the invasion of England in 1804," and had assembled great armies in Boulogne, while great flotillas were waiting; in the harbours of Northern France, that the same idea was put before him, and he, too, rejected it. Fulton, the inventor of the first American steamship, which plied on the Hudson in 1805, seven years before the Comet on the Clyde, offered to Napoleon the plans for converting his flotilla into steam-propelled vessels. Napoleon's rejection of the idea may be explained in this fashion: that he never seriously

intended the invasion of England, perceiving its utter failure from the outset, and his assemblage of armies and flotillas were no more than part of a great game of intimidation. We know as a matter of history that he broke camps and sent his Boulogne armies into Italy. Incidentally, it may be observed that this offer by Fulton, the American, to Napoleon may be challenged in its integrity. There is no doubt that Fulton visited Scotland about 1802, saw the Charlotte Dundas steamship on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and Henry Bell has testified that lie also showed him his plans for the Comet. Had our Admiralty accepted Bell's offer, made about 180*0 or 1801, there never would have been any question as to whether Scotland or America invented the steamship. Henry Bell had to wait 12 years before he could find a man to build his ship. Where America Scored. — Our Admiralty blundered again in declining to accept Captain Cole's design of the first real battleship. The captain devised floating rafts equipped with a revolving platform for guns during the Crimean war, and these were used in shallow waters with great success against Russian forts. On his return from the war he was requested to submit his ideas to the Admiralty, which he did, outlining a ship with a turret containing the guns, which would revolve. At that time the old broadsider was .still the only type- of war vessel' in adoption. The ship—not the turret—had to be turned round for the discharge of the guns. Captain Cole's idea was rejected. In the meanwhile Gnesson had come forward with his " monitor," embodying the same idea of mounting the guns on a revolving pivot; and this vessel was employed by the Americans in their Civil war. We were again late, because officialdom had rejected the ideas of a brilliant officer, and America, as in the case of the steamship, claims the first "battleship."

A French Gain. —

Naysmith, the Scottish inventor of the steam hammer, had a like experience with his great and revolutionary device. He begged his countrymen to accept the idea and. adopt it for'the development of the iron and steamship building industries. Nobody would look at it. Happening to pay a visit to the great French armament works at Creusot—the same establishment which is to-day turning out the big guns for the French army and navy, —he saw his steam hammer actually in operation. Asking for information where thev had got the design, he was astounded to learn that a French engineer who had been on a visit to Scotland had been shown a sketch of the hammer by Naysmith's partner, and, perceiving at once the value of the new invention, had mentally noted some details, and on returning to Creusot soon had the hammer workinn- in the groat armament establishment of° France. When he hear-d that, Naysmith hurried home to Scotland and took out a patent for his ''rejected" hammer, which speedilv earned universal adoption—thanks to the great French "unmaking firm.

To come to days closer at hand, the Boer war revealed many painful instances of War Office stupidity'arising from their rejecting ideas and inventions belonging to natives of this country. One of the deadliest weapons the Boers employed against our men "was the pom-pom, a Vickers gun which fires a rain of projectiles, after the Maxim idea, each weighing lib. The gun was made in England by Vickers, Maxim, and Company. It was not adopted by the War Office; but the Boers had seen" that it was a good weapon, and they incorporated it into their service. It did deadly execution among our men, who nicknamed it the "Pom-pom," after the infernal din it emitted in its rat-tat-tat discharge of its missiles. It is a fact also that in the Boer war our artillery, was semi-obsolete, outranged by the German guns which the Boers employed. Lord Roberts's son lost his life at Colenso in an effort to drag up his outranged guns into a zone of fire, the Boer snipers opening fire suddenly from trenches across the river, from which a shot had never been fired until that moment. We know also that Sir George White _ sent such urgent messages from Ladysmith for big guns that Sir Percy Scott improvised some naval 4.7'5, which he dismantled from H.M.S. Terrible, and sent up timeously to the beleaguered garrison. The* same also with Buller at Spion Kop. He pleaded for the bigger weapons whim he ought to have had, and Sir Percy Scott again came to the rescue with improvised 6in naval guns. sWe hope when our superior War Office dignitaries rejected the pom-pom they were not actuated by the same economy which pursued Li Hung Chang, tiie famous Chinese statesman, when he also decided riot to adopt it. It was on a visit to England when his Serene Highness saw the pom-pom spit out its leaden missiles faster than he could count them. " How much does each shot cost?" lie asked. " Six-and-sixpence," was the reply. ''Ah! that is too much for me." Kitchener's Foresight.— It is another item in the indictment against our okl>War Office methods that it declined to accept the Maxim gun when first exhibited to it. This little weapon, the most marvellous invention in gunnery that has ever been made, fires 600 rounds a minute itself, and yet some patterns weigh no more titan 281 b a piece. The wiseacres of Whitehall, when they saw this terrible death-dealer experimentally, shook their heads and begged to be excused for refusing its adoption on the ground that they could never be able to supply it with ammunition. They were overwhelmed with the thought of the transport of supplies, requisite for such a weapon, and so they gave it the pigeonhole.

Lord Kitchener was, however, much im pressed with the weapon, nnd he. having the requisite insisrht to perceive the im

possibility of -waging war against any nation which should adopt it, gave it hia imprimatur and ordered its introduction into the Egyptian army, which he at that time commanded. Everybody knows the awful execution which this terrible engine of destruction made at Omdurman among the fanatical Arabs who attempted to rush Kitchener's lines. Without the Maxim, however, there is no saying what these infuriated tribesmen might not have achieved. The battle was a tribute to the Maxim—and to Kitchener's foresights The Kaiser, ToolGive the Kaiser his due. When he saw the Maxim—on a visit to England—ho exclaimed : " That is the gun; there is no other." Not only did the Germans adont it, but they multiplied their numbers eight times per battalion over the figure which our slow and sightless War Staff deemed adequate. Mr Lloyd George only the other day confessed that the Germans had 16 per battalion against our two. Considering the smallness of the British army in its pre-war days, the restriction of this weapon to two units per battalion was a blunder equivalent only to their entire rejection of it in earlier" years. If our excellently-trained men at' Mons had been as well equipped as the Germans with their 16 guns per battalion, what a different tale might have to be recorded of the retreat from Mons! Certainly we could never have held up that great onrush of the enemy, but we could have retired more easily and with 'less sacrifice to ourselves and more to the enemy.

The same story is to be told of the bigger field weapons. "Wo were outclassed there also. _ The War Office had never taken into its head the value and necessity of adopting larger field howitzers 5 nevertheless, these were all along available in England. Vickers and Armstrongs both manufactured fields guns as big as any that Germany possessed, but the War Office never could see any use for them until the Germans taught them by bloody lessons their short-sightedness. It is said that one of our private firms constructing larger guns was aware years ago of our deficiencies, and they offered to the War Office to supply them. The proposal met with the customary rejection. War Office Red Tape.—

The brains of the War Office, as ifc existed in the pre-war or pre-Kitchener days, were to be found—in the pigeonholes of its archives. All the clever inventions were relegated to these repositories. The brains are in the country— ■ of that there is no doubt; one sees proof of that in these rejected inventions;. but at the head of affairs has stood another all-powerful body which has very often retarded progress in military and naval affairs. If we well look at it, the real reason why we have these words, " Too late " —employed by Mr Lloyd George on 14 occasions in his recent great speech on the war—inscribed on our pages of military history is to be found in the higher official red tape and stupidity. Let us hope this war will see a new order of things arise. HOHENZOLLERN SUPERSTITIONS. Speaking of superstitions and talismans among the Hohenzollerns and the aristocracy of Germany, the Paris L» Temps gives an interesting retrospect. The fact that the traditions concerning these potent agencies in some cases date back to the Middle Ages, only makes their survival in the twentieth century the more remarkable. Le Temps says: "Various articles that we have already published have shown that the culture of our enemies does not serve to protect them from superstition. But we have not previously spoken of this : that the spiritual-infirmity of superstitious belief is not only to_ be found among the lower classes and minor personages of Germany, but is in frequent evidence, with many variations of form and degree, also among all grades of the social hierarchy, not even excepting the highest ranks of the nobility. It is a fact that the ancestors of the Emperor William II placed a very firm faith in an apparition called " The White Lady " (Die weisse frau). The legend runs that whenever a member of the sovereign's family is about to die, the white lady appears in the palace. William 11, with al more vigorous mind, is not thoroughly in agreement with this belief of his ancestors. In spite of his scepticism, however, he continues the precautionary measures which have been in vogue in his family; for more than 200 years, and were adopted in order that the fatal announcement made by the appearance of the " white lady " might not be overlooked. Frederick William I, "the Royal drill-sergeant" (socalled on account of his favourite corps of guardsmen of giant stature, who were daily drilled by the King himself) was excessively superstitious, and ordered a strict watch to be kept in all parts of the Royal palace that he and his family inhabited, with a view to observing the appearance of the warning spectre. This precaution, now more than two centuries old, is still observed most rigidly. In accordance with the movement of the Kaiser, the closest watch is kept at the Royal palaces of Berlin and Potsdam, the guards posted in the corridors, within the apartments, and on the roof, being commanded to be on the lookout for the appearance of the " white lady," and the officers of the guard ordered to keen their men and the palace in strict surveillance, and to instruct their subordinates on this point. . But although the present Kaiser is somewhat sceptical regarding the visits of the " white lady," he is, on the other hand, very firmly convinced of the great power of "a talisman in his possession. Since the times of the Margraves of Ansbaeh, Bayrcuth. the Hohenzollerns possess a valuable ring, which the Emperor William II guards most carefully, because the perpetuation of his house is supposed to be conditional on the possession of this talisman. A curious occurrence has confirmed the belief of the Hohenzollerns in the power of this ring. When the Margrave George Friedrich Carl

died, the precious talisman was, carelessly enough, " left on the dead man's finger," and "buried with him. This branch of the Hohenzollern family did actually end with the death of the, next Margrave, Alexander, who was married to an Englishwoman, the Lady Elizabeth Craven, daughter of the Count Berkly, but died childless in London, after retiring from his principality in favour of the King of Prussia. The ruling branch of the Prussian house was also in danger of dying out, as Frederick William II (1744-1797) had only one child, a daughter. It happened, however, that a faithful chamberlain of tho palace was, for three consecutive nights, oppressed by a peculiar dream. This dream contained a "message from heaven" —viz., a command to open the vault in winch lay the body of the deceased Margrave George Frederick Carl, and to remove the ring from his finger. The legend of the talisman was thus revived, with the consequence that the king, a widower, married again, and a year later was by his consort presented with an heir, who afterwards became the great grandfather of the present Kaiser.

Another superstition is that existing in the reigning house of Saxony. . Until the ascension to the throne of Frederick August 111, the Royal Family was in possession of a peculiar fetish. This charm consisted of a valuable length of cloth, on which "mazzaloth"—i.e., magic Hebrew lines, had been embroidered in gold. This fetish was said to have come into the hands of the Elector Ernest (1411-1486), the founder of the dynasty, in a supernatural manner. It was always held in hi"h esteem, and carefully preserved, but disappeared in a mysterious manner shortly before the present King succeeded to the throne. The Cabinet in which the magic cloth was kept, although provided with three different locks, was forcibly opened, and the precious heirloom vanished. The ruined family life of the present King is generally ascribed to the loss of this talisman, which until then had brought uninterrupted good, fortune to the Royal House of Saxony. Most of the old aristocratic families of Germany have such talismans and charms, which are believed to bring prosperity to the house. The family of which Prince Bulow is a member also possesses a talisman in the form of a ring which a crusading knight is said to have taken from a Saracen chieftain when the latter, in a desperate combat, fell dead. The noble race of the counts of Alvensleben has for 400 years been in possession of a ring on which is engraved an image of the setting sun. As long as tho ring remains in its possession the house of Alvensleben will continue; and as the sun sets every day only to appear again in splendour on the following morning, so the glory and renown of their name will ever rise anew, and their line have no end ; so believe the Alvensleben. The house of the counts of Marwitz possesses a necklace of pearls, the gems of which, it is said, lose their lustre whenever a misfortune is about to befall a member of the family. The Marwitz family firmly believe in the power and the prophecy of these pearls. The present conflict will no doubt afford the owners of these talismans many opportunities of testing the efficacy of their magic baubles. The existence of such superstitions in their own midst may have" been one of the factors influencing the Germans to return to Russia the "amulets and ikons collected from fallen Russian soldiers. It certainly is a fact that many of the noblemen who are fighting for Germany believe themselves invulnerable by virtue of tho talismans which they prize so highly. THE GERMAN NAVY. WHY IS IT PARALYSED? Months have passed since the fleet of our enemy last exchanged shots with us. Little or nothing has been heard of that once proud array of ships bearing the German official label of ''High Sea Fleet," wrichcost the ratepayers of the Fatherland 80 millions in good money. The only thing it has done to justify the proud title and enormous expenditure was the shelling on the never-to-be-forgotten December morning of three British East Coast towns. So isolated a performance is pitifully insufficient to vindicate its reputation," for, even reckoning the damage wreaked at Hartlepool and Scarborough at a million sterling—a sum amply covering it—that figures out at only a trifle over per cent, of the cost of the German navy. —What Has Happened?— What, therefore, can have happened to this compilation of huge warships, every one of which had been blessed at launching by a no less personage than the Kaiser himself. Is it possible that its effective-ne-s has been so seriouly reduced by elimination and the ceaseless tear and wear of war since last winter as to account for its singular quiescence? And may it even be that the tall Teuton tales of many new warships on the stocks Hearing completion is only so much bombast to keep the German people's spirits up? What we do know beyond all question is that beforo the war was many weeks old the enemy recognised he had made a bad, almost fatal, mistake in the equipment, ami. what was much worse, in the build of his big warships. He sacrificed projectile-resisting properties' to speed, and speed cannot be everything to ships which keep to harbours and estuaries. But above ail. ho sacrificed big-gun power

—a strange thing for Germans, who are such ardent believers in monster ordnance, io do. Thus wa find that the enemy's battle cruisers, from which so much waa expected by officials and people alike. carry no heavier guns than llin, ana nothing between that calibre and 5.9 in, Even the battleships 6f the much-vaunted Kaiser and Heligoland types do not mount anything more formidable than 12in ordnance, and here again the next largest •drops almost violently in calibre to 6.§in. Then take the Deutschland and Braunschweig classes, -which, though big ships, have

each nothing heavier aboard than llin guns, while the Wittelsbach type is still less powerful with big ordnance confined to lour 9.4 in guns. —Fatal Under-gunning.—

This war may not have been prolific in bloody encounters on the sea, but it has seen enough to demonstrate how signally helpless is an under-gunned ship against a formidable rival. We had eloquent testimony of this in the great Sunday battle in the North Sea, when the German ships had to trust to toe and heel power for partial safety; and still moro was this trait testified to in the Coronel battle, when brave Admiral Cradock's undergunned squadron had not a dog's chance of existence.

When we think of our half-score of magnificent battle cruisers, each with eight 13.5 in guns and a galaxy of sixinchers, of our leading Dreadnoughts with the former calibre plus many loin guns, about .which so much has been heard of late, we begin to see eye to eye with a belated German realisation —the realisation of a fatal error when it is too late. True, it has been affirmed in some quarters that the enemy, while recognising that he has been badly beaten by the British shipbuilder, saw no bar to the shortcoming being made good by the substitution of heavier guns; but naval designers will tell you that a warship is built to mount a certain calibre of big gun, and to exceed that size is to endanger the superstructure of the vessel. —Paralysing Losses.—

But there is another and perhaps more ! convincing reason for Germany's naval stagnancy of the past few months, and it is to be found in her losses. The process of naval elimination has been, and I is still proving, a most serious thing to } the enemy. In August, 1914, he began maritime operations with 33 battleships, 20 of them Dreadnoughts, four almost new battle-cruisers, and 50 cruisers, either ! armoured or protected, apart from the ! usual small fry. Three of the very pick of his armoured cruisers lie at the bottom lof the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, a [ fourth fine cruiser is hopeless scrap on the Cocos, and yet another is rotting on Robinson Crusoe's Island. Then three very useful cruisers have gone far from home -waters never to return, while the 15,500 tons Blucher is a playground for North Sea fishes. The first real naval battle of the war, that off Heligoland, co.-t the enemy the loss of the splendidlyequipped Mainz, in addition to a thirdclass cruiser, and another large warship | of unknown name eluded capture, burning | furiously. Nearly all these ships were of j great speed, invaluable in guerilla tactics ! of the sea, and, therefore, a most serious j loss to the. enemy. Then, every one of the i huge auxiliary cruisers with which Ger- ■ many sought to establish a reign of terror ! in the Atlantic have been accounted for in j one shape or another. And what of her four superb battleI cruisers, each costing a couple of millions | sterling—thought to be well-spent money l at the time? The finest of all is in the ; Black Sea, and the Seydlitz, easily the I next best, as only able to crawl into port ; after the great Sunday battle. The ; Moltke, if not sunk in the Baltic, as was i reported, was certainly badly damaged, J and the Von der Tann remains a mystery, | nine months having passed without a scrap ;of information concerning her. Better for ! the enemy that he should lose a score—aye, ] two score—of ordinary cruisers than have I these four placed hors de combat, for they ' stood head and shoulders above the 1 others. —Concealed Disasters.—■ So far we have dealt only with losses either admitted by the enemy himself or beyond all doubt. But what of the disasters which have been indifferently concealed, or concealed altogether? What of the powerful cruiser Frederich Karl, sunk by the Russians in the Baltic, and of two others, if not more, which shared the fate from the torpedoes of British submarines? | Then there have been many circumstantial ' tales of German naval losses, which, i though they have not been officially con- | firmed by us, must in some instances bo ! true. Certainly several of the enemy's ' warships have escaped by the shin of their • teeth to friendly ports when in a sinking j condition and blazing furiously. But even i if the problematic losses are disregarded, | wo will find, on summing up those which I are beyond question, that Germany has j already parted company with a cornpila- ! tion of ships sufficient to make a most formidable - navy for any second-class Power, and a compilation she herself can only part with at the expense of an almost fatal weakening of her navy. There is no need to look for further reasons for the seeming German naval apathy. It is helplessness, pure and simple, the natural consequence of a navy reduced to tatters and shred-dom in the face of an antagonist who, despite his losses, is stronger to-day than he was in August, 1914.—Axchibold Douglas. THE GARDEN OF EDEN. A NEWLY-DISCOVERED STORY. Some years ago, among the ruins of Nineveh, there was found a cylindrical stone seal engraved with the figures of a man, a woman, and a serpent gathered about a tree. At once it was suggested that the ancient Babylonians were familiar with the old Semitic story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, or the story of the Fall of Man. Also among the ruins of Nineveh was discovered a large collection of clav tablets, 100,000 in number, inscribed with the literature of the Babylonians and Assyrians. When the tablets were read the world was surprised to find among them the story of the Creation of the World, and also a story of the Deluge so similar to the biblical story that it was evident the Hebrew and Assyrian stories wero the same. For several yoaTs an expedition from the University of Pennsylvania carried on excavations in the Babylonian city of I Nippur, where something like 70,000 inI scribed objects were discovered. In the

autumn of 1912 Professor Stephen Langdon, of Oxford, while visiting the museum of the University of Pennsylvania, noticed a. fragment of a tablet bearing an inscription which suggested the .story of the Garden of Eden. The fragment was brought to Oxford and carefully examined, and at last a few linos of a Babylonian story resembling the biblical story were discovered. Upon Professor Langdon's next visit to Philadelphia search was made for other fragments of the tablet. Two were found and fitted together, and the tablet became nearly complete. The tablet is of baked clay, of a light brownish colour, measuring 7J>in in length and sin in width. One side is flat; the other is slightly convex. Upon each side are three columns of cuneiform writing, containing about 273 lines: originally it contained about 300 lines. Scholars are agreed that it comes from about 1000 years "before the biblical story was written in its present shape. —The Writers.— The story is written in the S'umerian language. The Sumerians were the first cultured people to live in the lower Mesopotamian valley to the north of the Persian Gulf. To just what race they belonged or where they originally lived, no man knows. We are only sure that at a very early time, probably about 4500 8.C., they came to Babylonia bringing a high civilisation with them. They wrote their language in cuneiform characters upon tablets of clay and stone. They had a highlydeveloped religion, literature, and art. Poems and legends and historical inscriptions have come from them. They were the world's cultured people of 6000 years ago, just as were the Greeks of a later period. After the Sumerians had occupied Babylonia for several centuries the Semitic Babylonians, from whom the Jews descended, entered the valley. They conquered the older civilised Sumerians, possessed their cities, and adopted their culture. The Semites had no written language, but soon they began to write their spoken language in the Sumerian characters. They adopted many of the Sumerian religious customs, and made that earlier civilisation their own. It was these cultured Sumerians who wrote the story Upon the tablet in the University of Pennsylvania. —The Story.— A brief outline of the story is as follows:—Enki, the god of the sea, and his wife or daughter Xinella. ruled over mankind in Paradise. Paradise was the land of Dilmun, or the modem island of Bahrein. In Paradise sickness was unknown. Sin had not entered. Though the years passed, it was a land of perpetual youth. No wild beasts destroyed the flocks, and no storms raged. Enki, the god, decided to destroy mankind with a flood, and he revealed his purpose to Nintud, the goddess who had created mankind. For "nine months and nine days the flood raged, and men were dissolved in the water "like tallow and fat." But Nintud, the mother-goddess, determined to save the king, Tagtug, and him she called to the shore and embarked on a boat. Tagtug, who was thus saved, corresponds to the biblical Noah. It was the custom of the Babylonians to deify their kings after death. " The goddess Nintud explained to the god Enki how _ Tagtug had escaped the universal destruction, and had become a god. He then became a gardener. Enki revealed to him the secrets of the trees and plants. Tagtug was permitted to eat of the fruit of all the trees, excepting that of the cassia. But he ate of the fruit of the cassia, tree, and at once the goddess Nintud took from him immortality. He was compelled to labour and suffer until the gods took pityon him and taught him various arts to comfort him.