EDITING IN RHEIMS.

Hokitika Guardian, 14 July 1917, Page 4

EDITING IN RHEIMS.

THE THRIVING RIFF. (M- Claude Helluy, Editor of the Courrier' de la Champagne. the oldest daily paper iii'Rh'eims, has arrived in Paris from that city. He has been obliged to suspend publi- . cation of his journal, which had come out regularly all through the war, even 'during the eight days’ occupation by "the Germans in September 1914.) ' Paris, May 3 Although I have closed down my printing office, the inhabitants of Rheims are not without a newspaper, for the Eciaireur de-l’Est ' continues to appear in the bombarded city. Produced on a pedal press almost daily, it consists of a -small sheet, quarto size, printed in two columns'on both .sides of the paper.' "its contents are chiefly made up of the’ official war communiques issued by the French and British Governments, the number of shells which have fallen on tlie previous day, the list ot killed and wounded by the bombardment, municipal notices, and some scraps of local news. ; From September 19x4 to April 1917 these two Rheims papers contained., in addition to iterTTS of a parochial character, extracts from the Paris Rrgss. There \yas rfo original news nor any interesting information from outside. For 31 months we had to do our work without the telephone, without the telegraph, without correspondents. Our rotary presses were stopped for lack ot an electric motor, and our linotypes were silent because we had no gas. One or two old j compositors, unmobilised, and several young apprentices set up the journal by hand. It was also printed by hand, relays of men following one another at the work of turning the antiquated presses, similar to those employed by The Times in ISOO. The Eciaireur, more fortunate than the Courrier, was able to keep its machines going by means of a petrol motor, installed some time after the death of one of its “ turners,” killed alongside the press by a shell which came through the glass roof of the building and exploded in the centre of the office. At the beginning of the war the staff on the Courrier numbered 150*, but before we shut down it had fallen to 15.® M- Gobert, technical mhqager of the paper, himself had replaced the five members of the editorial staff and two employees all mobilised. When M. Gobert, called up in his turn, left for Verdun lie was replaced by myself, liberated while I was at the Verdun front because I am the father of seven children. I thus became editor, manager, printer, and staff all in one FORCED REMOVAL/ Daring tliq. last two years the Coim-iei was obliged to change its address twice. It moved first to the premises of a photo-engraver, whose workshop was situated in a part oj Rheims which enjoyed a certain amount of tranquility. When , we left there it was for the centre of the eily, a commercial printing office opposite the little door of the cathedral. Onr removal was cine to the following circumstances. The Oonrrier was originally accommodated in the premises of a well-known English firm, Sir Isaac Holden and Sons, of Bradford, important woolcombers in Rheims. The journal had acquired Sir Tsaa ’s private residence, near the wool-combing factory on one side, ' and not far from the Colbert Barracks on the other. This proved to he doubly dangerous, for it received on the one band the shells falling too short, intended for the barracks, and. on the other, those too long, meant for the factory. One day when we were busy print ing off the edition a shrapnel shell struck the cylinder of the press and {the fragments flew in all directions. By a miracle no one was hit. As the staff fled into the adjoining shop they were followed by another shell, which exploded in the middle of a roll of paper. They were about to take refuge in the publishing department when a third shell anticipated them, eo.ming through the ceiling and destroying the machine used to print addresses. The workmen only reached the cellar, 40ft degp, in time. The same cellar served shortly affer for a battery of artillery, which vyas passing on the neighbouring boulevard when a shell fell in their midst. After we had settled down near the cathedral I occasionally revisited our old premises at Holden’s, and every time I went there I noticed new depredations. A shell, landing at the foot of a wall, tore a hole in a

brick partition and, striking a linotype machine, threw--it-. forward nearly 2ft. 1 traced the marks of 50 projectiles on the house, which is now partly destroyed. Behind onr office the Holden factory, which covered several acres, had been burned by a shower of incendiary shells, and the chimney stack, 250 ft high, had been knocked over by a shot at the base. This happened three weeks ago. Under the shadow of the catliedral we spoilt a less agitated time than in the zone ot projectiles destined for the wool-combing factory of the “accursed English.” The fury displayed by the Huns in 19*4 against the cathedral had somewhat calmed down. In 1915 and 1916 the only sensational visitors were some 150 shells, one of which pierced the arch of the transept. Another ripped the roof off the Eciaireur office ; and a third broke in three the electric standard on the pavement outside and blew in our windows, replaced so often that they consisted of tracing paper instead. of glass. For a similar reason the tiles on the roof had mostly been replaced by tarpaulin, which in its turn was riddled by machinegun bullets from German airmen. merciless bombardment. A fortnight before the beginning of the Frauco-Britisli offensive the Gerilia'lls began’ to grind the city to powder bit by bit. Each quarter in turn was mercilessly pounded, on systematic lines, fn the ruins accumulated by the ejomm. (8.3111) and 305111111. (42411) guns the 77mm. (3.1 in) incendiary shells lighted flames which completed the disaster. Asphyxiating , bombs, disj tributed in profusion, prevented the firemen and rescue corps from qpproachiug the groups of burning houses. - The conduct c£ the Rheims inhabitants during this period of redoubled Bqclie fury was superb. I cannot here record all the instances of bravery of which I have been a witness or which were reported to me. But I must mention the heroism of a noble woman. Mine. Baudet-DuJJuy, wife of the director of the champagne firm Veuve-Pom-mery. She,''with four other people, was killed while placing a wounded soldier in her motor-car.' Such was the intensity of the bombardment that the cliaffenr, who was instantly killed, remained dead at the. wheel, . and the occupants of -the car lay stretched on the" seats from eleven o’clock in the morning until, nine 1 o’clock in the evening before their ' bodies could be removed. Mr Lloyd-George, your Prime Minister, is one of the distinguished visitors I have seen in Rheims during the past year. He was standing, apparently deep in meditation, on the ■ square in front of the cathedral, be- ' fore the monument of Joan of Arc. With his cloak turned aside and his hands thrust into his pockets, his head and chest thrown back, his attitude was that of profound admiration. For a long time he gazed at ,the face of the national heroine, to whom Rheims lias erected a statue. In the same attitude and with the same sentiments many other Englishmen—who know what chivalry means —will in future look upon the city of Rheims, or, rather, wliat remains of it. For the intention of the Germans to reduce it to/a heap of stones and ashes is evident. Since the first of April the city has received more than 80,000 shells, and has suffered more than Verdun, Its cathedral, mutilated and charred, has in the mass resisted up to now. But to-day its vaults and buttresses are being rudely shattered by bombs capable of levelling any kind of rampart. If the Germans, three weeks from, now at the latest, have not been cleared out of the massifs of Bern and Brimnnt, from which they dominate the martyr city, there will lie nothing left of the oldest town in France and the most beautiful church in the -world.