which had occurred in their vicinity. Each resident was given one hour to remove his valuables but not his furniture, and the houses were then burnt. The first of these reprisals took place at Midleton, County Cork, and were strongly denounced in the Nationalist Press. On January 5 four more houses were destroyed near Newmarket by order of the military governor in consequence of an ambush of Crown Forces in that locality the previous day. In this ambush two military lorries, each containing five soldiers and one policeman, had been attacked with machine-gun and rifle fire by a large party of civilians. Shortly afterwards it was officially announced that although it had not been possible to identify any of the persons engaged in these attacks, yet the military governor considered that the preparations could not have been carried out without the knowledge of many of the local residents, who were therefore held to be guilty at least to the extent of having failed to give information to the military or police authorities. It had accordingly been decided as a punitive measure and a deterrent example to other districts to destroy certain houses in the vicinity of the outrage, which were definitely known to be occupied by members of the militant section of the Sinn Fein movement.

On January 5 Sinn Fein carried out another coup by which it enriched its coffers to the extent of over 10,000l. Ten rate collectors of the Dublin County Council were visited one morning by parties of armed Sinn Feiners and compelled to sign cheques for the amount of the balances standing in their names. The cheques in each case represented the exact amount collected, this being ascertained first by careful examination of the accounts. At the end of the first week in January other attacks on police were reported, the principal one being at Tramore, County Waterford, one of the areas most recently placed under Martial Law. According to the official military account the police barracks there were attacked and a military relief party was ambushed about two miles from Tramore. On January 12 bombs were flung in Dublin at a lorry filled with auxiliary policemen and revolver shots were fired. On the same day the police made a find of hidden arms.

The political situation at this time was that North-East Ulster had her Parliament and intended to make it a success. Many of the moderates and Southern Unionists were willing to give a trial to the Home Rule Act, although they were concerned about the working of its financial clauses. The Sinn Feiners who had returned 70 per cent. of the Irish members at the last General Election were divided into a small minority of extremists, and a large majority who were willing to come to reasonable terms with the British Government. The extremists, however, wielded an influence in the country out of proportion to their numerical strength, this influence being based on the agreement of the moderates that the Act as it stood did not furnish a settlement.

On January 14 a crime, for which no explanation could be found, was committed in Dublin when Mr. William McGrath, K.C., was fatally shot by unknown men at his home. Mr. McGrath was a Constitutional Nationalist who took no prominent part in politics.

On January 15 there was further rioting in Cork, during which one person was killed, two police officers were seriously wounded, and about twelve civilians suffered gunshot injuries. On that evening troops took possession of an area around the Four Courts, Dublin, and isolated it by means of barbed wire barricades. The Cork rioting led to reprisals on the part of the military authorities. Two houses were blown up in Washington Street, Cork, under official orders on January 20. In consequence of the repeated attempts on the lives of members of the Forces of the Crown in the City of Dublin, the military authorities further gave notice that in future hostages would be carried in all motor vehicles belonging to the armed forces in the City and County of Dublin and in the County of Meath.

On January 20 a police patrol was ambushed at Glenwood, County Clare. A district inspector, a sergeant, and four constables were killed and one sergeant and one constable were wounded; their car was burned and their arms were taken. On the same day another district inspector, T. O'Sullivan, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, was found shot dead within about twenty yards of his barrack in the town of Listowel, County Kerry.

An elaborate ambush was attempted in Dublin on January 21, but was frustrated by the auxiliary police; one civilian was severely wounded and five others were arrested, bombs and revolvers being found on them. During the night of January 20-21 seven police barracks in County Tipperary were attacked by large forces of armed civilians, but in each case the attacks were repulsed without casualties to the police. During the next few days deeds of violence continued to be reported from all parts of Ireland. On January 22, two policemen were found shot in County Monaghan and another constable was found wounded at the same place. An ex-soldier was found in County Cork with two bullet wounds in his head and a label pinned to his clothes bearing the words "convicted spy." On the other hand, three Sinn Feiners were shot dead while attempting to evade arrest. On January 23, 100 armed men attacked a police barrack in County Tipperary. The attack lasted for an hour and a quarter, and bombs and rifles were used, but there were no police casualties and the attack was beaten off. A similar attack was made on another police barrack in County Donegal with the same result. On January 24 a mixed party of military and police was ambushed in County Tipperary; one military sergeant was killed and one private died of wounds, and one officer and two privates and one police officer and two constables were wounded. A further ambush was reported on

January 25, when a motor lorry was attacked near Dublin with bombs and revolvers; no police casualties occurred, but there were several casualties among the attacking party.

Several crimes were committed in Belfast on January 26. Two constables were shot dead in their beds at a hotel, and another constable who was with them was dangerously wounded. A few hours later another man, described as a chemist's assistant, was shot in his bed by two masked men who forced their way during the night into the house where he lodged. At the end of January there were no signs of any decrease of outrage throughout Ireland, and life was scarcely more secure in Dublin than it was in Cork or Kerry. Two murders were committed in Dublin on January 28 and 29, and a party of soldiers was ambushed near the outskirts of the city. No motive was known for the murders of the two civilians, and in each case the murderers escaped.

The elaborate arrangements of the Sinn Feiners were illustrated when the Crown Forces partly destroyed a large house near Dublin. A search of this house revealed the fact that it was provided with a number of false walls and false doors, and that it contained a false wardrobe with a secret spring which opened a chamber that appeared to be used as an office. In one of the rooms secret doors and secret cupboards were found. There were nine exits from the house giving access to adjacent fields. The dummy walls were thin plaster partitions concealing passages between them and the real walls, along which men could pass unseen. During the investigation a revolver and some ammunition were found in one of the dummy walls, and it was known that the premises had been used to carry out the objects of an illegal association.

On the last day of January an officer's wife was fatally wounded during an attempt to murder her husband at Mallow, County Cork, and two railwaymen lost their lives as the result of firing by uniformed men which followed the attack. The officer, Captain King, a County Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary, was returning with his wife from a hotel at Mallow when he was fired at from behind a hedge near the railway station. One of the shots slightly wounded Captain King in the foot while others struck his wife, wounding her so badly that she died a few hours later.

Further outrages marked the beginning of February. On the 2nd two tenders containing auxiliary police were ambushed in County Longford. The first car struck a road mine and was blown up, two of the auxiliary policemen being killed and nine wounded, of whom two died later. On the same day a policeman in plain clothes was shot dead while cycling in Dublin. In County Cork four policemen were attacked and one killed, while in County Wicklow Mr. Robert Dixon, J.P., was shot dead, and his son seriously wounded. On February 3 two cars carrying policemen were ambushed within 10 miles of Limerick,

nine of the police being killed and two seriously wounded. A similar attack in County Cork was successfully repulsed, a number of civilians being killed. Every day further outrages of this kind continued to be reported.

On February 4 the Ulster Unionist Council at its annual meeting unanimously selected Sir James Craig as leader of the party in the new Ulster Parliament. Sir Edward Carson delivered a speech in which he reviewed the new position in Ulster, particularly deprecating any sort of religious intolerance. On February 6 Sir Edward Carson made another speech in Belfast in which he referred to the financial provisions of the new Home Rule Act. He said that there was no part of the Act which had given him more misgiving than the economic provisions, but those provisions were open to review, and he believed that if flaws were found in them the British Government would be ready to go half-way in trying to get over the financial difficulties involved. He held, therefore, that it was an elementary duty to see that everything possible was done to make the Act work smoothly.

The fatal shooting at Mallow, already recorded, led to unexpected action by the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen. During the shooting, members of that Union had been killed and wounded, and the Society forthwith threatened to call a strike unless an inquiry was ordered into the circumstances of their death. The threat was not taken very seriously. Mr. Lloyd George stated, in reply to a communication from the Society, that no threat of a national strike could be permitted to influence the action of the Government on a matter of the administration of the law. The subject came on February 11 before the Executive Committee of the National Union of Railwaymen, who instructed Mr. J. H. Thomas to raise the issue in Parliament which was due to open the following week. This arrangement sufficed to meet the views of the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers, and the threatened strike was abandoned.

On February 11 a daring attack was made on a party of soldiers in County Cork, resulting in the death of one of them and the wounding of several others. Fourteen men of the Royal Fusiliers were travelling to Killarney when the train was stopped and a heavy fire was opened on the carriage containing the troops from each side of the line. The soldiers replied to the fire, but a sergeant was killed and an officer and five other ranks were wounded, four of them seriously. The rebels carried off all rifles and equipment before ordering the engine-driver to continue his journey.

One of the most successful of the coups achieved by Sinn. Fein was carried out on February 14, when a prisoner who had been recently tried for murder succeeded in escaping from Kilmainham Gaol without the firing of a shot. According to the story told at the time, though afterwards con

tradicted, a body of armed men wearing full military equipment arrived at the principal entrance to the gaol and presented an order for the removal of the prisoner. The order appeared to be in correct form, and after a brief delay the prisoner was handed over to the supposed troops who surrounded him and marched off. It was not till later that the authenticity of the document ordering the prisoner's removal was questioned, and it was then found to be a forgery. Troops and auxiliary police searched the district, but neither the prisoner nor his guard could be found.

On the same day one of the worst ambushes yet recorded took place a short distance out of Cork. A train carrying forty soldiers with boxes of bombs and other ammunition was attacked, but the military casualties were comparatively light, three soldiers being seriously wounded and three others slightly wounded. The civilians in the train suffered more severely in the course of the indiscriminate shooting; seven men and a woman were killed and about fourteen persons were wounded.

Early in the morning of the 17th the military surrounded a large area on the north side of Dublin, completely isolated it, and then began a house-to-house search. Shortly afterwards another large area of the city was invested; as a result of these operations a number of important documents were seized.

On

There was no diminution of crime as the month of February wore on. Within ten days five citizens of Cork were shot dead in terrible circumstances; two of the victims were commercial men, and three ex-soldiers; it appeared that the reason for their murders was that they were believed to be spies. On February 20 a fight took place between civilians and a party of the Hampshire Regiment in County Cork, as a result of which the military captured three wounded and two unwounded men, and picked up thirteen dead. February 23, two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary were shot dead and another severely wounded in one of the principal streets of Dublin within two hundred yards of Dublin Castle and the City Hall where troops were stationed. On February 22 three unarmed soldiers of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry were captured and shot in cold blood at Woodford, County Galway, while on February 23 two unarmed soldiers of the Essex Regiment were kidnapped at Bandon, County Cork, and murdered.

Outrages were not confined to Ireland, and during February there were several outbreaks of incendiarism in Manchester and the district. On the 13th the number of outbreaks was no fewer than seven. They were deliberately planned and carried out by small bodies of men armed with revolvers. These men held up the watchmen while setting fire to the premises, over which they kept guard. Fortunately the outbreaks were discovered in good time and extinguished before