Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-08-18 | Page 33 | Many Hospitals Raided by Huns

MANY HOSPITALS RAIDED BY HUNS Churches Also Are Favorite Objects of Attacks by Forces of the Kaiser. By F.OEERT S. DOMAN, Universal Service Staff Correspondent. PARIS (by mail). By a strange fataJ-Hy fataJ-Hy the churches and hospitals of Paris seer: to suffer in nearly every bombardment bombard-ment by air or long-range gun. In the vast city of Paris the churches are small targets and well-scattered ones at that. But fate seerns to direct the German shells and bombs invariably toward them. In the event a church is missed the bomb or shell seldom fails to strike a hospital. By a still stranger coincidence two of the most famous churches in Paris, both known the world over, have each had an exterior statue of St. Peter decapitated. On the day a great number of American, Polish, French, Belgian and Canadian troops assembled in one of these two churches a shell dropped in between the pillars and splinters flying upward cleanly decapitated a statue of St, Peter. The other damage to the church was insignificant. insignifi-cant. On the same day and almost at the same hour the bags of sand protecting a statue of St Peter on the west facade of Notre Dame gave way, breaking off the head. The superstitious ones are pondering ponder-ing over the curious circumstances. The peasants in St. Denis, a suburb of Paris, recall that St Denis, the patron saint of Paris, was beheaded on Mont-martre Mont-martre (Mons Wartyrum) back in the fifth century. They believe that the decapitation de-capitation of the statues on the two most historic churches in Paris is a warning from St. Denis to the Parisians that the city will be threatened.