UNITED IRELAND

From the London Evening Telegraph

Lately the news of various fights and active altercations which have been brought off in Persia, Turkey, or Spain have served to turn the attention of the interested earth from that Green Isle, which as a rule provides enough combativeness to satisfy the most jaded appetite. According to yesterday's cables, however, things have taken a turn for 'the better and Ireland is her own happy self once more.

It appears that near Lurgan, which is in County Armagh, a party of peaceful Protestant people from Belfast, which is the home of peaceful Protestants in Ireland, were returning home to the ship-building city after farewelling a party of immigrants, as the cable says. While mentally conjuring up visions of the poor exiles of Erin on some foreign shore, the party of peaceful Protestants were set upon by another party who are called by the cable man, "Nationalists." A fierce fight occurred, the Protestants throwing off their grief at the departure of their friends and joyfully "mixing it" with the opposition. Now there appeared upon the scene a party of policemen! No sooner did these last cast a shadow upon the situation, than the combatants forgetting religious and political differences, joined forces in common and with an ecstatic yell which might well have made all the warrior kings of Ireland turn in their graves, fell unitedly upon that enemy of all Irishmen, the "polis."

The details of the conflict are scant. It is merely announced that the Riot Act was read — a matter of everyday occurrence in Ireland. Reference to the casualty list, however shows that 22 constables were injured and after a bag like that, a total of 30 casualties among the militant "civilians" as the cable calls them, is as nothing.

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