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July 29, 1914.

Village Worthy.



of the most appalling scandals of modern times is the disgraceful suppression by the Ginger-beer Press of news relating to the state of affairs in the Isle of Wight. For some weeks we have not flinched from filling our columns with picturesque accounts of the epoch-making events taking place there; and yet the Ginger-beer Press has cruelly put off its readers with the scantiest details, or else refrained from any sort of reference. We make our protest all the more vigorously because many of those readers have been driven to read our own journal in preference to the erroneous and misleading sheets to which we have referred.

This distressing state of things has forced us to make the fullest arrangements for a constant stream of news to be supplied from our branch offices at Ventnor, Totland Bay, the Needles, and other points of the Island. We have despatched a huge staff of world-famous war correspondents, descriptive writers, poets, photographers, Royal Academy artists, gallopers, commissariat officers, and trained bloodhounds. Field kitchens, field wireless equipment, and field glasses are included among their impedimenta, and no single message will be printed in our pages that has not been sent in some other way than through the ordinary channels of the post, telephone and telegraph. Each member of this army of artists, littérateurs and tacticians possesses a hip pocket, fully loaded, two pairs of puttees, a compass and a wrist watch.

Every day scores of women and children are leaving the Isle of Wight for the mainland. Gunboats and cruisers are passing and repassing before its shores, by order of the Admiralty; strong, silent men are doggedly pursuing the business they have in hand. In the very heart of the island some of the flower of the youth of our country is being trained in the art of naval warfare, while the thunders of gun-practice are heard every hour around the coast. Yet, search where you will in the Ginger-beer Press during the last few weeks, you will find practically no reference to these things.

We implore our readers, on the highest patriotic grounds, to inform the few remaining adherents of the Ginger-beer Press that if they desire the Truth it can be found only in our pages. We have the pleasure of printing below the first of the astonishing articles which have been sent already from our Expeditionary Staff:—

The streets of Cowes are bathed in sunlight. Smart yachtsmen, accompanied by daintily dressed ladies, walk hither and thither. The shopkeepers chat pleasantly. The burly policeman drowsily pursues his way. Children shout happily. Surely here is peace, says the unsuspecting visitor. A brown-faced man with a light beard and a heavy tread approached us. "It is all right," said my companion to him; "this gentleman is a friend." Then, lowering his voice, he added: "He came over last night." "Beautiful place, Cowes, isn't it? " said the bronzed man. I noticed that his hip pocket bulged. Yet none would have suspected that his conversation was not of a perfectly ordinary character.

Entering the most sumptuous hotel in Cowes we had lunch. There was nothing sinister about the place except that the waiters were German. But I noted signs of understanding between them and my friend. "I have been here before," he explained, with a quick glance about him.

So life goes on from day to day. We are waiting, waiting. The little boot-maker in his shop is waiting. The tailor is waiting. The hotel staffs are waiting. The passengers on the rail-way platforms are waiting. On the surface life is gay and free from care; but what I may have to tell you when it comes round to my turn to write again, who can say? 