He said that if was the custom of the rebels when they occupied a town to command the old members of the Republican forces to join them or be shot. This policy was successful in getting them a large number of helpers to dig trenches and fortify buildings, if it did not provide very reliable fighting material. Two young apprentices in the factory at which he worked were called up in this way, he said, and had not been heard of since. During the occupation of Cork the feature that impressed him most iwas the cowardly passivity of the populace when faced with a handful of young desperadoes He described how lorries full of young rebels drove up and their occupants fired factories and smashed machinery while the employees stood about and dared not lift a hand to protect their only means of subsistence. Had the people made any firm stand against these outrages he believed they would have ceased long ago, but (no Irish crowd would have the courage to behave as the Londoners idid when Field-Marshal Wilson was shot and an unarmed crowd pursued the murderers until they were captured. Nothing could have been better than this pertinent illustration to show the gulf there is between the people of the two nations.
pre-war days any description of Ireland given us by visitors here pictured the natives as being entirely under the thumb of the priest. We inquired of our friend, who had been in Ireland 20 years, if that was his opinion. He said that during the last five years there been a revolution in that re-aspect and the younger generation cared as little for the priests now as for anyone else. He gave several [instances in which priests have been lucky to escape with their lives when they have endeavoured to interfere with the dastardly amusements of their parishioners. For this he blamed' the priests themselves, remarking that they confloned the cowardly murders of ex-soldiers and English in the years that immediately followed the end of the-war, and were now.only reaping what' they had sown. He said they were now also in great difficulties financially, as the people would not pay the dues as readily as they used to do.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.