If at the moment of the ' Thetis ' catastrophe
the Admiralty acted somewhat niggardly towards the Press, the London evening papers are taking a terrible revenge upon the tribunal of inquiry. Posters have been displayed, alleg- ing (in inverted commas) that the ' Thetis' men " lost their heads," or alluding to a " trapped feeling," as though some scene of confusion or horror had occurred. In fact, these references derived from the comment of one witness that the four men who died in the Davis escape chamber may have lost their heads, and that he himself while in the escape chamber had experienced for a few seconds a sensa- tion of being trapped. It cannot be easy to prepare the current posters from hour to hour ; but I often suspect that the departments where this work is done observe a lower standard of taste and responsibility than most newspaper men.
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