BILL THE BOMBER AND HOW HE BOMBED,
[BY A BUPERNUMENARY.]
The men who spoud all their working days five sounds away from sudden death are liable to develop certain characteristics which unfit thear for society.
I think that explains Bill the Bomber. I am told that in the forgotten days before Tour Bill was quite civilised, rather lazy trove. I thr with extreme caution, and worried if his feet got durap. It is the opinion of the battalion to-day that B2 an the most ruthle scoundrel lung and a publie danger,
GREECE AND ENTENTEL
ALLEGED PRESSURE.
PREMIER'S STATEMENT.
THE UONGKONG DAILY PRESS, MONDAY, MARCH 9718. 1916.
BY RIVER TO AMARA,
WITH THE SEPOY IN MESOPOTAMIA,
A CITY OF THE TIGRIS.
We have entered the oldest country in the world, says a correspondens of the Englishman
We arrived at Basca (7 miles from the sea) on the 31st December, and the saine night we transhipped into tivo paddle steamers. These vessels are taking us up stream to Ali Gharb
The following is the official text of the statement made by M. Skoujoudinthe Premior, in the Chamber of Deputies :
The Government will continue the policy for which it was constituted, and which forms its political program, amely, the maintenance, intact of the national forces with the object of employing them in the national interests. The course of events has
Qurnah, where wo anchored in the morn- indubitably shown that the adoption of this policy saved the country from incalculing, is the reputed site of the Garden of Second Lieutenant William-suppose we able disasters This policy received the Eden; for evidence we are shown the tree. on him Smith officially recognised as approval of the men majority of the of the knowledge of good and evil. Here Hellenic people, to whom the King, exer the old channel of the Euphrates joins the grenade officer of our lattalion. He mne fested an interest in high explosives direct casing his constitutional privige to this Tigris. The date graves which stretch an tho was gazetted. nad ous of his per-solve the Chamber, recently appeated. The four miles up stream are the last outpost of fertility, After this one "enters a formances drew considerable attenuto voo by which you have already s own
your confidence in the Government and by treelem waste of swamp and desert, but hin
Wa had been experimenting with some of electing as President of the Chamber one is seldom out of sight, of herds of don those nice little tombs that any schoolboy according to our consecrated usage the keys and cattle and flocks of sheep. The can make if he knows how and can get hold candidate selected by the Government has dwellers in the reed and mud lists run of the right pinserials All that is re-solemnly confirmed the confidence of the alongside the boat clamouring for bakishile quired in an empty cigarette tin, a bit of Hellenic people, whom you alone represent and scrambling for coppers thrown them by safety fuse, some wire, clay; and gun in conformity with our regime. This fact the troops. powder. Real bombers, of course, sneer at shows that our policy justified by events, these things. but if you put the materials is invested with the authority of the people's together in the right fashion and ght the will, which it clearly represents, tans you will never be blamed for hurling the contraption is far and as quickly as you can. If you do not throw quickly ough neither praire nor blase wid vorry you at all for the future,
Well, we had disposed of all our bombs but one, and over that one our instructor was shaking his head as he inspeed the bit of fuse sticking out of the button of the tin. The fact is," he said. "I'ra no a bit sure that this isn't a piece of bad taurour fuse," Safety fuse you, must re- member, burn us the rate of two feet a
minate, while instantaneous hustles along ag ninety feet a second, which is all very woll if you have got ninety feet of it and can get that distance from the dis,urbance, but not at all well if you have only three inches of it. "We'll bury it in the ground, the instructor docided, and light it from that trench with a match on the end of Jong stick. 1f we are in the truck wo shall be safe enough." So we buried the tia, leaving just the end of the fuse stick- ing up. Then we looked for a stick,
Wo
Upstream the Biblical tradition holds. The second night we moored by Ezra's
tomb, a domed shrine silhouetted imorget The confidence of the Chamber and the the palms in the clear starlight, Ong could nation strengthens us all the more in the not help moralising upon the new lap we conviction that as it has hitherto colored were pursuing in the continuity of history. to the interests of the nation, this policy when one heard a Lowlander of Perth will protect it the future from the great point out the scribe's resting place to his dangers which the present world conflamate asyon corner hoose, gration entails for all small nations. do not disregard these dangers, and we are sot ignorant that they are aggravated by external pressure exercised with the object of making us take a direction contrary to that traced by our policy. But reposing the confidence of the Hullenic people, we hope that we shall succeed in averting the perils by continuing to follow the policy From the beginning hitherto followed, wo have found ourselves in the presence of difficulties and complications in the course
od
of events,
The outside pressure to which I have alluded, in its disregard of our uncere intentions of our incontestable right to remain aloof from a struggle foreign to our national interests and our obligations, bay for some time become oppressive also by acts. I shall not enumerate all the other attacks upon our national oversignty, bus must, however, specially mention the violation of the perpetual rutrality of Cerf which is guaranteed by inter national treaties, and the occupation of the fort of Kara Burnu by the threat of
GUS-COTTON, BLASTINE, AND TN-T. Now Bill had heard all that, pee said. Ho know the doubt about the fuse and the possibility of trouble as well as any of us, But he was suddenly cursed with an idea. He remembered how men have lit the fuse from the lighted end of a cigarette and be wanted to see if he could do it 1 violence. twenty yards away when someone poked, looked, round, There was Bill sprawling on the ground, pafing at a cigarette whose glowing tip was pressed to the end of the fuse, 1 imitated his position without delay, and fay prayerfully trying to hide in a six-inch gully. member wondering if there would be any thing left of his fave.
But the fuck was with him. It was safety fuse after all, and he had time to drop into the trench after it began to sputter, Five minutes lator our insueter was telling Bill a little of what he thought of him while the rest of us were coming earth and bits of cigarette tiu out of our hair. There was a further wigging from the adjutant, and I believe the C.O, nade: a fow remarks. But when the time cane for one of us to be sent on a bombing course Bill was chosen
It is possible that this pressure will continue, but the unnkable firunong of popular feeling which manifested itself racen ly in a striking fashion gives us the firm presentiment that this pressure wil not make the country deviate by one inch from the policy dictated by national interests. In patriotis pride, in the senti ment which springs from its independence, the entire nation will submit to all pressure with Brinness, and it will derive strength from the hope that justice will not delay in reaming its authority over the con- science of the great ones of the earth though the tempt at present let loose stifles its voice for the moment,
He returned ia due season, very touch to Somehow he and lived surprise, Muar
through his weeks in that secluded district whore gun-cotton, blastine, and T.N.T. are going off all day long. He came back with the struggle for the realisation of our much strange machinery, bits of fuse in al his pockets, little boxes of detonazory mixed up with his kit, and slabs of auwholesome compounds in a box, Having explained that the stuff in the box was enough to Blow all our camp to powder, ho declared that he meant to keep it in the bunk which in other less feverish days I ha! shered with bin I was sorry to dissolve the partnership, but it had to be done by conscience is not good enough to allow me to sleep with several pounds of dry gun
Navigation above Ezra's tomb, until sine reaches Amara where the stream widens.
Que
passes becomes slow and difficult. narrows and the Devil's Elbow, and the rivny makes the sudden twists and turns. The physical features of the country are familiar to our Indian troops.
The vil lages resemble those of the Punjab or the Qalat. Salih might North-West Frontier.
bo a quarter of Dera Ismail Khan, the same sloping mud walls onclosing the haveh, or courtyard, with cowdung cakes of fuel plastered against them to dry i the sun, and scooped wooden drain pipes, projecting from the roof. A few of the houses are of sun-dried brick, but there is an entire absence of ornamentation save in the two-storeyed baconied buildings of the merchants, and officiais on the river front, where the woodwork is latticed and frotted. For vegetation the date palm, with an ne- casional mulberry of willow fed by irri- gation channels,
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The French, British and Russian Minia- tera at the Bogian Court called at the Belgian Ministry for Foreign Affairs last month and Prince Kadacheff, the Russian Minister, acting a spokesman for his colleagues, addressed the Minister for JIPANAS... Foreign Affairs in the following terms:
The Allied Powers signatory of the treaties guaranteeing the independence and neutrality of Belgium have decided to renew to-day, by a solemn act, the engagements they entered into with regard to your country. Consequently wo, the Ministers of France, Great Britain, and Russ duly authorised by our Govern- ments, have the honour to make the follow- ipg declarations:
The Allied and Guaranteeing Powers. declare that when the moment comes, the Belgian Government wily be called upon to take part in the peace negotiations, and that they will not end hostilities until Belgium has been restored to her political and economie independence, and literally- didemnified for the damage she has un- tatned. They will lend their aid to Bel- gium to ensure her commercial and finan eir recovery.
According to the Exchange Telegraph Company' tersion of this event, Barou Besens replied to the address of the Russian Minister in the following terms:-
The King and the Government are especially grateful to the Governments of the three Allied Powers alike for the guarantees of Boigion independence and for the generous initiative to-day. Your works will excite a vibrast ocho in aft Belgian hearts, The fresh assurances that you give us will go to strenhen their unshakable conviction that Belgium. will be raised anew from its ruins and will be restored to completo political and economic independence,
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The Italian Minister and the representa- tive of the Japanese Governmont then in formed Baron Beyens that, their countries. not being included among the Powera guaranteeing the independence, and neutra- lity of Belgium, they wished to announce declaration being made by the Allies THE TAIKOO DOCKYARD
Some of the riverain Arabs are handsome, and have a certain hayklike dignity and. grace of carriage. For headgear they wear the keneh and sagal. The kefeh, a che quered cotton cloth: generally of a blue and white pattern, is kept in its place by the sagal, a double plait of goat's hair or wool. In these cold months the kafieh is tied down under the chin, covering the ears. In the RESCUE OF SERBIAN ARMY.
ot weather it is draws up and tied round the crown of the head.
Many of the children have brown.or chestnut hair. The women are fair and go about unveiled. I was talking to an Afridi in a Punjabi regiment and asked if this was not unusual in a Musulmon people, He explained with an eloquently moderat- ed scorn, that they were only Shiahs, The Indian Sepoy regards both the country passes my understanding, the Afridi and inhabitants with equal contempt. T added, why the Sirca, bould desire this Satan-like land
This he admitted. "The people are not onltivatora," he explained, they are
merchants." merely
Do you know anything of their lan gunge I asked
The country cannot forget that however painful may be the consequences of the in complete harmony of our policy with the demand of those who exercise force, the loages which will result are infinitely less
I agreed with him that judged by mere than the ruin which would have been the inevitable consequence of another directionly physical considerations the country was of our policy such had been adoptal.not worth the ammunition spent on it, though a wise Sircar might find the wear policy, which is the policy of the nation.of rendering it fertile. Thore were we shall have your support as you have amples of worse soil in the Punjab that signified by your recent vote. You will had been made not merely fruitful, bat also be collaborators of whom we shall ask equal to the besty approval for measures necessary for the accomplishment of our work. This is not the monient to touch upon great internal problems, and we shall only consider the chief questions in submitting to the Cham-
He smiled, I know enough to tell them her measures dietated by circumstances,
to fetch water and to clear out," he said. During the absence of the Chamber the
That is sufficient for such a people." Goyeruntent. in view of the urgency of certain measures, proceeded with the pre- And he laughed & laugh which inspicitly mulgation of certain decrees. In submit-embraced the Sahib's contempt with his FIFTY MIXED RUFFIANS,
ting them for ratification to the Legislative own Before he went on his course E was a pareou of no importanca After his roarn Assembly it hope it will be excused by it. he seemed to be the only person in the bat (Loud cheers.) talion who really counted. and the rest of
The statement made by the Great Pre- us, from the commanding offer down, spent 100st of our time in doing things for himier in the Chamber of Deputies continues the chief topic of the Press, and it is. Certainly he kept us busy. Tronches were he could carry out his nefarious practices make a communication to the Press declar o we dug trenches. Then he was over. g that the Quadruple En cute is in no lastingly demanding fatigue parties to fotor aad carry. We pointed out that he had fifty mixed ruffians under his sole camerad, but he retorted that their training must not be interrupted, and hinted tha might be forced to make representatione to the Brigade. He got his way, but the men began to hate him-except his own party,..
cotton.
LEGATIONS' REPLY.
He was certainly a masterly and impos ing figure, and his six foot three, and breadth in proportion, and his spotless accoutrements, were well set off by the rabble on the back,
TSAR'S CONGRATULATIONS.
The Emperor Nicholas has sent the follow- ing telegram to President Poincare:
I have just received the news that the Serbian army sheltered from all dan ger, thanks to the efforts of the French Government, I have from my heart to address to you my warmest congratula-
tions on the help which France has generously accorded to our valiant Allies, so cruely tried in their heroic struggle agriust the common onemy,
NICHOLAS.
M. Poincare has replied to the Taar message in the following terms:
York Building, Hongkong, 15th March, 1910.
AND ENGINEERING CO. OF HONGKONG, LTD. TAIKOO DOCKYARD, HONGKONG. SHIPBUILDERS, SALVORS AND REPAIRERS. BOILERMAKERS BRASS AND IRON FOUNDERS, CONSTRUCTIONAL ELECTRICAL AND MECHANICAL ENGINEERS. WELDING AND CUTTING OF METALS BY OXY-ACETYLENB
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Estimates given for quick construction and repair of Ships, Engines Boilers, Railway Rolling stock, Bridges, and all Olssses of Engineering Iron and Wood Work. GRAVING DOCK-787′ by 88' by 84
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Our military mission and our fleet which, | IHRER PATENT SLAPWATS thing vesels up to 5,000 tona displanment, providing
in agreement with the British and Italiau nava, authorities, have affected in spite of great difficulties, the complete rescue of the Serbian army, will be very sensible of your Majesty's congratulations, France is proud to have contributed to warda preserving intact tho valiant troops which have had for the time being to give way befots superiority in pun bors, and which will co-operate with the Allies in the liberation of their county,
(Signed) POINCARE. eul Newi
his great desire-fine, deep trenches where announced that the Entone Legations will jab a health resort compared to Mesopo clipped about their ears like Mahsuds or
*
In these days we do not see very much of him. He seems very happy with his trenches, He is plastered with clay from morning to night, and when he comes into the mess ho scatters earth all over the
Sometimes I fancy that he is place. little lonely, but that is entirely is own fault. We agreed long ago that it is im possible to hold any sustained conversation with a man who cannot talk for five minutes without fishing a rifle grenade out of his pocket and forcing you to listen while he describes some improvement or other which he has designed for the thing. Besides, he is dangerous,
My own knowledge of fulminato of mer- cury is not extensive, but I am aware that it is an excitable substance, with a vile tempor..
If you pred a bit of it with a knife it is practically certain to explode and take your hand off. On its really bad days it will get to work if you shove it, and to drop a tube of it on the
ONE LONG CRISIB
way endeavouring a force Grosec to depart from her neutrality,
Renter's correspondent is in a position to state that, for the time being, at least,. Entente diplomacy contemplates making no It considers the Prime communication, Minister's statement in Parliament as an official confirmation of what has already. been said.
sonditions for painting ships with most efficient results.
100-Ton ELKOFRIC CRANE ON QUAY-ELECTEL OVERHEAD CRANES
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50-Ton Hydrosilo TESTING MACHINE for Chaing, Wire Ropes, Rivets, etc. AGENTS FOR-
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BUTTERFIELD & SWIRE. HONGKONG, CHINA, AND JAPAN, AGENTS, Telegraphic Addrets pu“ TAIKOO DOCK."
[28
A HUMIDOR FREE.
in uniform the café would be a good point of vantage from which to watch the crowd outside. A group of Kurds passes in the streets in their high bulbous hate of rough | TELEPHONE No. 212 As for the climate, he declared the Put felt, their socoth locks hanging free and
tamis. But that is always the Sepoy Powiadah, of Afghanistan, Two of those way, more so even than the Sabil's. He rough mountaineers moct add embrace and will disparage the place where he is sta salut each other with acternate kisses on tioned, preferring his own sterile plot of each cheek. A Jew, his Turkish fez bound reued with a kefieh, is proclaiming to an earth, even if it be a fire pit like Multan.
Amara, thirty-one miles up stream from Arab policeman now s servant of the Bri- alat Sil, is the most considerable town tish Raj, that he has been robbed of a piene of silver. He repeats big tale with solemn between. Basra and Bughdad. It is now teeming with tribesmen and all the flot gestures which might be an accompaniment aser and jetsam which follows in the wake to a recital of the Book of Jeremiah.. of war. The British flag flies over the A pale scholarly looking Persian from Turkish barracks, and the wounded Bri-Dizful is appraising a akata of wool at the tish Tommy seated on his beach in his blus opposite stall A wild-eyed Bakhtiari hospital suit surveys the Tigris with the glances nervously into the café and bur same complacency as he has watched theries o waters of the Nile, Seine, or Thames,
And threading this
New-caught sulle people, Half devil and half child,”
against the trench they will explode with out further delay. Life as a boither is one
The bazaar is spacious and stone roofed, long crisis, and I suppose a man gets uso...
some 35 feet in heigheas in Baghdad, and to it.
But if Bill has his faults he has also the crafts are localised as in all the cities there passes the proud upright woll Something of the East. At every turn from the main groomed figure of the Indian sepoy, the certain tremendous virtues. happened in one of his trenches the other thoroughfare the street names are inscribed young British subaltern upon whom
in English beside the Arabic characters thority wits lightly, and whose competence day. He did not say anything about it.
to handle the tribes of the desert or the but gradually the tale got round. They There is an opportunity here for an ima
ir Book at
mountain is palpable at a glance, back were experimenting, it seems, with a trench ginative touch, but one finds a
of the Arabs has become plain view or front, down the whole length of the estapult, and something went wrong There Gazareen was in position a bomb with a fuse timed" Butcher's street" the "Sook al Kaba-street. to burn aino seconds. The man whose du zeen,Bakers' Stront." ***Supper It is the Turks we are fighting, but it
it was to fire the thing bungled somehow. He tried again, and failed once more to release the trigger. The other mon crowd- ed, back, struggling to get round a tra- verse, and there was bo room. Five ou of the nine secondi had passed
Street" Pontoon
"
20-
Street,' "Soap is a significant coma at upon the length Street" proclaim the needs of the hours and strength of the British arm and the if the scribe of Haroun al Raschid had complexities of administration upon which we enter with a light heart, that there is nover existed,
Dot a Turk visible among these thousands of Araha, All this motley of tribes and religions with their conflicting interests, policies and creeds is incidental. Judging by the past everything will be straight
the meantiute
CAFES CROWDED LIKE A LONDON SHOP,
And then, you know, Bill made a dive into Every fifty yards or so there is an Arab the trench from where he was standing on café where the denizens of the bazaar, one of the cruder and more painfu!the parades, grabbed the bomb in his hands. hooded in their keneh, squat on high back forms of suicide. And I contend that a and flung it forward. It exploded twenty od wooden benches like pews in a village ened out all right. In man who carries tubes of it with himyards away, and no one got anything words church, pas round the kaliun (Persian Amath is a mere ripple on the Mesopota habitually is to be avoided.
than a fright. We made him confess to the kuka) and exchange gustural comments onmian backwater, and ahead of us, a bund- story, but he was quite annoyed, "It's the business of the hour. Some play red and fifty miles up the river, is the all in the day's work he said. "After 1 dominoes. Others sit and gaze into vacancy. Turk
on our old paddlebox got hold of the thing I'd at least two These dark taverns are as crawled as tea- seconds to spure if the fuse was all rightshops in Piccadilly after a matinée, But to be in time for the advance, and curse the way, just look at this there is more diversity of type For our luck that we had to tie up at Amare By
Aman is a thoroughfare. It is here that to coal and now this morning we find we grenade...
We wont away to peniss him beyond the the caravan route from Dizfu in Persin have in tow half-a-dozen boats plunging back the reach of his confounded technicalities meets the Tigris, and the tow the head in our wake which will hold u
quarters of the Babaqus. I were not best part of 20 her day, Daily Mail.
I suppose he cannot help it. All day song he is throwing bombe or showing others how to throw them. Every time he light
a fuss or pulls out a safety pin there is
no more than a bare five seconds between him and total disintegration. Mary of his bombs are so delicate that if, while swing ing the hand back for the throw, you hit
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