On the Sea.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 22, 1 May 1916, Page 6

On the Sea.

STORY OF THE BLOCKADE. REAR-ADMIRAL LIFTS THE VEIL AMUSING RUSES RELATED. (Received 10.5 a.m.) London, April 30. Rear-Admiral do‘Chair, commanding the British blockading squadron until March, lilts the veil in an interview with tile Brooklyn Daily Fugle, wherein he says: The blockade was concentrated chiefly on the east and north of Scotland, and the squadron, which has grown steadily, consists of a complicated network ol cruisers, through which it is impossible for a vessel to pass unobserved. The cruisers are fully converted ■merchantmen, being officered by Navy reservists, with an adequate sprinkling of Royal navals. Generally, they are twenty miles apart. Every vessel is boarded often at great risk, many of the . boarding boats being smashed, and the crews immersed. The chief ruses for smuggling are double bottom decks and copper keels, and on sailers hollow masts, where rubber and cotton are concealed. Hour and coffee, and sometimes rubber, are disguised in real honeycomb. Rubber as onions, which was discovered when an officer dropped one and it bounced in the /air, is the most common ruse. A bogus manifest was found on several occasions. The captain, realising that the game is np, humourously prod-ices tV genuine manifest to assist the inI speetors. Admiral do Chair personally saw cri’i -m-s sink four German submarines, 1 which were about to torpedo neutral I ships.