THE MEN FROM THE SHIRES

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16146, 26 February 1918, Page 7

THE MEN FROM THE SHIRES

In another despatch the same correspondent, who appears to be accorded moro latitude in referring to individual regiments in Palestine than are his confreres in France, -described a great charge made by the Midland Yeomanry, who galloped through the Turkish batteries in regular Balaclava style, and put to flight a couple of thousand of the enemy. They had been ordered to charge by the officer commanding the infantry, which had conic under very heavy gun-fire.

There were ton troops of Worcester j and Warwick Yeomanry, commanded j by their colonel, a master of hounds.' xie find jus mon sircpt oror the j in successive lines, about 2000 yards I from the enemy, and raced down' the i slope across the flat, partly obscured bv a mound m front. Over this rise the u Col c en sp '"' rcc ' their chargers and took ! the final rise at a terrific nnce. ther- ! ranks somewhat thinned bv the 'M,n and ' machine-gun, and rifle fire, which the : enemy switched off the Londoners snon after tho trails of dust told cf the ad- i vancing cavalry. The .Midland horse- ' men dashed through the left flank ; guard, who tried to flee from tho charging lines. Many were too late! | Tho cavalry's target was not so much the infantry as the guns. Giving fullthroated cheers, they went straight for the field and heavy pieces. The -miners did their utmost to stem the on- , slaught. They set their shell fuses at zero to make them burst a: the mouth of the guns and act as casc-shot, bus nothing could stop that charge.

"There were twelve guns in action 3gainst these valiant boys from the

n shires —nine German-made field puns and three 3.9 howitzers. The field guns banged as fast as the Austrian and d German gun crews could load them, l | but every enemy artilleryman was 't sabred by his piece. The Londoners heard the fire of all the suns stop dead almost at the same moment. Having 0 finished with the batteries, the Yeomen swept up towards the ridge again ■- to -silence three mnchine-guns used against T ><:;). These were captured • ami brought into action against the des> parting Turks. Many were thus - killed bv their own weapons. This n Irilliantlv executed and most dashing - charge is considered by those who saw e it ;:s worth vof a high place in the nn- * rials of British cavalry, its swift suc--1 cess not only resulting in the capture 0 of batteries at an important stage in the operations, but thoroughly routing - the enemy llank guard and having a far- - reaching effect."' - GERMAN AGENTS IX AMERICA. Tlio latest disclosures of the propa- ~ gautia methods of German agents in tho l : nited States, will further iucenso the nation, whoso temper lately has , been steadily rising to tho point at 1 which the people will insist on tho internment of all enemy aliens. Already there has been a cry for this step to taken. It would, as one -Now York paper admits, be hard upon tlioso who are innocent of criminal designs, but for it they will have to blame Germany and the "German propaganda of crimo and treachery throughout tho world. ) Every German who suffers, aslie thinks, I unjustly, may bo assured that his pun- ( ishmont is tho direct result of teachings for which the ruling class of his coun- * try accepts full responsibility." L i\lr Curtis l?oth. who was a. United States Vice-Consul in Germany, has declared that "tho world is literally ai crawl with the spios of Central Europe. ) They are recruited from all nationalities,and are paid mostly according to tho value of cach piece "of work. Some ' are 'patriots'; some hopo for commcr- • eial and political support after the war; a few derive social advantage and orders in tho gift of the Kaiser." Enough has happened in. America 1 sinco tho war began to make 'the Ame- ' ricans angry. Several munition works i have been destroyed by fire or blown . up, it is practically certain by German , agonts, who havo also been responsible for firos by which food supplies valued I at over £3,500,000,000, being destroyed. Over GOO persons have been 1 convicted of crimes in the Gorman in- > terest on or near tho Great Lakes, through which millions of tons of war material pass every week. Tho result of all this has been a pretty general conviction that America could _ get on with 'the business #of prosecuting the war much better if all German sympathisers, known or suspected, were interned. It would bo a vast job, "but safety may yet demand it. Meanwhile all German subjects over the age of fourteen have been forbidden To approach any place of military importance. To reside in tho capital or in the Panama Canal zone. To change their residence without permission. To take passage in any steamboat, excepting public ferries. To ascend in any balloon, airplane, or airship. To stir out without 'their registration cards, which they must produce upon demand. This, it is »„ekoned, affects about 6GOjOtXJ men—l3o,ooo in New York alone —but, in the opinion of many, it does not go far enough to Stop "the carnival of incendiarism." THE EYES OF THE NATION. In this connexion there is a remarkable trbuto in a recent issue of the "World's Work" to the services rendered to the United States by an American newspaper man, John it. Hathorn, editor ol tne now famous "Providence Journal," of Rhode Island, who is, as a matter of fact, not an American at all, but a good Australian, born in Melbourne, and was educated there and at Harrow, returning to Melbourne to begin a journalistic career in which he has been of great sesyice to his adopted country. Sir llathoni is described as tho man who discovered and exposed the Gorman plots in America. He ia tho man who forced the recall of the precious von Papen, and tho notorious ±ioy-Ed. Ho unearthed Dr. Heinrich Albert and his 40,000,000d01. corruption fund, and 6ent him back to Germany. He proved that the Lusitania warning was sent out by the German Embassy on orders direct from Berlin. He sent Consul-General Bopp, at San Francisco, to prison for two years for conspiracy. He warned the Government that the Canadian Parliament Building at Ottawa was to bo fired, throoj/weeks before it was burned by German agents. "Inf brief, ho is the man who (without official authority) was for three years' tho eyes of tho nation, guarding it against tho treachery of the Germ ail Government. He has been a patriot of ' tho highest order in the faco, first of early unbelief and x-idiculo on tho part of the Government, and then of slander and abuso on tho part of tho whole pro-German element." Tho mass of data, accumulated in threo years of ceaseless search, and stored in triplicate in vaults in Providenco, New York, and "Washington, "is literally tho foundation stone upon which Jias been erected tne whole structure of America's present enormous secret service, and it is the cause of the awakoning of the American people to tho hideous menace of Germany's coldblooded assaults on their very existence as an independent nation." UNOFFICIAL SECitaT SERVICE. If half tho things told of Mr ltathorn are true, aud they are vouched for by tho "World's Work,"' ho should be the official head of America's secret scrvice, as ho has been its chief and most valuable unofficial assistant. It is romarkablo that the editor of what is described as "an old-fashioned conservative, New England paper,'' published in a small town, should be able to uncover the plots of tho cleverest plotters in Germany's great "underground army" of spies and agents, lio could only havo done it by the generous support , of tho proprietors and the willing and tireless "services of ft dozen reporters 1 whoso ability in tracking down news is < shown in tiie fact that they boat the : German secrct service agents at their i own game a hundred times, and enabled , their paper to publish some of tho most j jealouslv-guarcx-d plans of the enemy. f iiL" 1» a thorn, we are tolrl, had the foresight, apparently by means of a wire- j less plant of his own, to have taken £ down in writing and kept on file every * wireless despatch sent by the great i Sayvillo and Tack or ton -wireless stations c since the day war was declared in Aug- . ust, li'l-1, and the ingenuity to ciociphcr masses of these despntchcr. in code, j including thousands of damning mcs- ( cig'.-s from von Berr.storff, von Papon. lJjy-iv.l. Di'.mba, and scores of others, to the German and Austrian Govern- t liic.'lts. He also succeeded in getting y his own reporters into confidential positions in the twelve most important a Teutonic headquarters in tho United s States, and received from them almost i jdaily ronorts and original documents | covering every phase of German plots 1 t and German propaganda. ; t As a consequence of this latter do- | j vice there is to-day, in the office-; of the I -j '•'Providence Journal," "a card index of J v tho names of 70CJ people, hundreds of [ them American citizens, dozens of them , honoured leaders in professional and j 7 publi." life, who are known still to bo I working the Kaiser's will in every im- j .* partus I ci!y in the I'nited States. Theso traitors are. many of them, unsuspected ; ~ by neighbours and friends who respect j arid tnist them. Tho Government has 1 been informed of their activities." | Judging bv recent events, thero is J still abundant scene in the State-; for . I Mr Rathorn's patriotic ingenuity. In e the fight at Home against Germany he * is one oi America's most valuable ; t weapons. It