"LAWLESS SLUMS" IN IRELAND.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14162, 30 September 1911, Page 3

"LAWLESS SLUMS" IN IRELAND.

TO THE EDITOR 0* "THE FASSB." Sir.—ln "Tho Press" of yesterday appears an account of the "Labour War" iii' England by your Londou correspondent. After mentioning tho cities remarkable for their lawlessness, the account states that the Scotland road Division of Liverpool is notoriously the most lawless in the British Isles, not <uay.>ptiog Dublin, Deiiast, and Cork, from which statement we get tho plain inference- that these three Irish cities have, with Liverpool, tho must lawless slums in tho British Islee. Well, sir, by all accounts there ivero wild •and lawless statements as well as actions during the "Labour War.' , But I will venture to say that, for recklessness or for uiijustification —whether impelled through ignorancn or malic* I will not say—that statement of ymir correspondent may rank with, it not surpass, any of the most unwarrantable utterances shut forth from the exciting platforms of the Labour War. with this difference, that the latter's sayings had tho pressures and the excuse of excitement, vheras the writing of your correspondent, I would tako it, was done in tho calm atinosphero of the writingdesk, therefore the more unfair anu culpable; as surely a London correspondent has some responsibility. Now, sir, anyone acquainted with Ireland, and with the statistics of crimo in those three Irish cities, knows that I your correspondent's assertions are distinctly and emphatically contrary to fact. I cannot help coming to* the conclusion tliat your London correspondent knows about as much of Ireland as did tho Londoner whom iSir Charles Gavan Duffy mentions in his recollections. To this Londoner, whose conception of an Irishman was formed from tho stage, every Irishman had a wild look, flanmig red hair, a battered hat, with a pipe stuck in it, a red vest, kneo breeches, and carried a skull-cracking stick. This well-informed young gentleman took it into his he.ad to visit Dublin, and alter a few days' wandering about tho city, wroto to* a friend iv London that "ho had not seen an Irishman since he arrived in Dublin. ■' I should like your London correspondent to pay a li'leo visit and give us the result. AYe may find it interesting, even if more reliable. — Yours, etc., COLONIST. I