ZEPPELINS.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 33, 6 September 1916, Page 7

ZEPPELINS.

A RAID ON EDINBURGH. A letter received this week by a lady, resident in Dunedin from a relative in Edinburgh describes a recent Zeppelin raid on that city. The writer says:— “I saw in the Scotsman an article on the weather, and it said we had not had a winter like it for GO years. All the time, however, although wo had our little surface grumbles, we had an underlying belief that the storms were sent to keep away the Zeppelins. While we should bo preserved from Zeppelins while others suffer wo cannot tell, but so it has been. We have been wonderfully preserved, although they have come to our very doors at last. Some of us were thinking a few bombs would be necessary to wake people up to the situation. Wo were in real earnest when we thought that. Some people will not wake up so long as they can get a comfortable pillow to lay their head upon, even if they had to drag it from under someone else’s head. Well, we in Edinburgh got our waking about a mouth ago. It was a lovely evening—the first we* had had for months. Think of the very worst thunderstorm you ever experienced, when the cloud bursts right overhead and the lightning blinds your eyes, and add to that ten thousand tin trays crash-down upon your own roof, and you have some idea of what waked me at 11.45 p.m. I said to myself, ‘that’s Zeppelins.’ 1 rose and looked out, and just at that moment there was another brilliant Hash of Sight, find a dark object fell just in front of the window. There was an explosion, but not nearly such a loud one as I expected, and I said to myself, ‘Dear mo, if that is a bomb it is not so very bad.’ 1 now know that it dropped into the boiler of the infirmary laundry, and thus did not explode. That itself was a very wonderful thing, as it was an incendiary bomb.

“By this time my friend and I were preparing to go down to the basement. While we were going, there was another terrific explosion, that shook the whole building. All the neighbors were gathered in the basement. We stood between the walls of the passage leading to the green. There we had a little prayer meeting. We prayed very specially for the people in the infirmary. It was of them we were always thinking. We also repeated verses of Scripture to encourage each other. ‘Thou shaft not be afraid of the terror by night’ had a meaning it never had before. Explosion after explosion occurred and the ground trembled under our feet, and the walls seemed to rock. You will ask, What were the ‘ten thousand tin trays’ battering down? They were the glass: breaking. George Watson’s school, j just beside us, had every window j broken, and the building was badly J damaged. Two bombs fell on it. Then the infirmary had one or two large windows broken, but they were in the operating rooms, so, of course, had no one near at that hour. A doctor’s I house in Lauriston, not a stone’s throw from here, was wrecked—only the walls left standing. Ido not I know how they escaped, but no one was seriously hurt in it. All round! about us windows were smashed, including our own, of course. Three' men were killed in Marshall street,

and some buildings there were wreckled. All the windows in Marshall Street Baptist Chapel were broken. Jt is impossible to describe to you the ! desolated and wrecked appearance of this district, the Grassmarket, Castle terrace, Synod Hall (all windows broken), St. Leonard’s, Pleasance, part of Nicholson street, Bellevue, Leith, Pilrig, and other districts. When 1 speak of a wreck, remember, no walls are down. Cur strong stone walls have withstood the shock well. “Wo were all prepared for another visitation this week. A man came from the lire station to warn us—‘all lights out.’ Streets pitch dark, objects looming up in front of one now and then —these are street cars and ’buses, and vehicles standing, all lights out,— every one hurrying along silently, no gathering in groups, no speaking, no whistle of an engine, no cable—silence—it gets on one’s nerves We know that, so long as we heal the cable running for the cais, and hear engines whistle, etc., wo maj cuddle down in safety so, when we wake up in the night we listen for these and how welcome they are.”