SAFETY MINTS

Southland Times, Issue 25360, 12 August 1935, Page 8

SAFETY MINTS

AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS. NEW BRITISH HANDBOOK. London, July 31. “People who think they can smell geraniums during an air raid must be careful, because the smell of Lewisite, one of the most virulent forms of mus-tard-gas, resembles that of this humble flower.” Tliis warning is among the hints given in the first of the six handbooks issued by the Home Office dealing with air raid precautions. Emphasizing the fact that precautions cannot be improvised on the spur of the moment, but must be made in time of peace, the handbook recommends householders to select a room least exposed to the prevailing wind for protection from gas. An emergency food supply should be kept there. During a raid, cracks, windows and doors should be stopped up with mush made of old newspapers soaked in water. The handbook graphically describes the effects of choking gases, nose gases and tear and blistering gases. It is pointed out that even walking over an area contaminated with mus-tard-gas is dangerous and the area must be railed off. Details of respirators are given but it is stated that these are not sufficient protection against specified gases. Civilians affected must remove their clothing quickly and wash their skin thoroughly. DEADLY NEW GASES INVENTIONS SINCE WAR. LORD HALSBURY’S CRITICISM. London. Aug. 1 Lord Halsbury, who has been a student of gas warfare for 20 years, describes the Government anti-gas booklet as dangerous nonsense and “bunk.” It neglects, he declares, deadly post-war gases on which hundreds have been working for years. The booklet, known as the Air Raid Precautions Handbook, which yesterday was circulated to every home in Great Britain, declared that the gases described were all known and partly used in the Great War. “But,” says Lord Halsbury, “England, France, Russia, Germany and the United States have all realized that a mask which is efficient for any one gas would not be effective for something entirely new.” He recalls that in 1917, or the beginning of 1918, the Americans attacking St. Mihiel ridiculed warnings that their masks were useless against phosgene. They declared proudly that they had been made by the greatest expert in America. “They went into battle and fell like flics,” says Lord Halsbury. “The casualty list was not published, but they were always known in America as ‘the 10,000 martyrs.’ ” Lord Halsbury charges the Government with trying to make people live in a fools’ paradise.