Today -100: January 21, 1915: This blind barbarian vengeance doesn’t terrify us

The British shrug off yesterday’s zeppelin raids. Says the London Star: “This blind barbarian vengeance doesn’t terrify us. Rather do we deduce from its comparative impotence new confidence in the triumph of right over might.” A church was damaged in an English town with the most English-townish name ever, Snettisham. Which is 4 miles away from the king’s estate at Sandringham, so there are rumors that the Germans were trying to assassinate him but got lost in the dark (anyway, the king wasn’t home).

The people of King’s Lynn are sure the Zeps must have had help from spies in identifying targets, since the bombs fell quite near (without actually hitting) such vital targets as an oil storage tank and the King’s Lynn post office. The MP for the area, Holcombe Ingleby, which is the most English-Tory-MPish name ever, will claim that two unknown automobiles had used searchlights to point out targets.

British insurance companies have sprung into action, doubling their rates for policies against damage by aircraft.

The air raids have alerted the NYT to the existence of “a German policy that does not seem to have been very well understood”, a policy of terrorizing civilian populations so they will pressure their governments to end the war. No, really, the NYT is just figuring this out now. But they figure the ineffectiveness of zeppelins, at least in this raid, should reassure the British people, because Londoners have a greater chance of being eaten by a lion than bombed by a zeppelin, probably.

Fog of War (Rumors, Propaganda and Just Plain Bullshit) of the Day -100: Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, having stubbornly failed to drop dead despite many rumors saying he was going to, is now totally going to abdicate.

Australia’s capital is temporarily moved from Melbourne to Sydney.

22 of the Carteret, New Jersey deputy sheriffs who shot up the strikers have been arrested for manslaughter. The rest remain guarding the fertilizer plant.

Following that pool-room raid in Maryland where some congresscritters – or perhaps some people who just claimed to be members of Congress – asserted their immunity to arrest, there is talk about issuing them with special badges or something which they would be required to wear under their lapel, like that of a secret society.

The lower house of the Idaho Legislature passes a bill against aliens owning land.

All non-combatants are ordered out of Cracow within 48 hours.

A negro, Edward Johnson, is lynched in Vicksburg, Mississippi, for stealing cattle.

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