Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 202
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[Page 202]
sixteen bells of the Navy eight for the old at midnight and eight for the new.
This book has been written mainly from a rough diary kept by the writer and from the letters home which fond relatives carefully preserved but also from time to time the Censor has obtruded himself and the letters are mere shadows of their former selves. The pithy parts have been cut out lest the Huns should see them.
He was a great man this Naval Censor who sat in his arm chair at Melbourne and like Rhadamanthus in another place, gave judgment as to what Australians should know.
Of course there were Naval Censors in each ship men who really knew what was important and to whom their Captain gave orders as to what was to be said and left unsaid but the quid nuncs of Lonsdale Street knew better and pried afresh into the privacy of officers letters and destroyed with their wretched scissors information which would have helped to make Australian Naval History. The result is that one's