Alland wrote:
For that matter, what about their lack of precautions against disease germs? They would have seen plenty of epidemics and plagues on Earth where folks lay down and died en masse.
Any comments?
In an epidemic, people don't usually fall down dead in the street, they often retire to their beds and die there (out of sight of any Martian telescope) A Martian may see a person go into a dwelling place and not come out again and a few days later a long box is carried out, it would be astonishing if the Martian managed to work out that the box contained the diseased remains of that person and that's if the Martian watched the same spot continuously for several days, which he couldn't do as the Earth rotates you know.
And as 'Yuri2356' said, I don't think Wells meant the Martian equipment was powerful enough to pin-point a pimple on the tip of your nose. I imagined the type of military or secret-service photos we used to see where a long black object about the size of a grain of rice could be a Russian sub. Wells mentioned 'Navy crowded seas' I took this to mean the Martians could see vessels moving about on the water.
I think you're reading too much into what Wells wrote and intended to convey.