BALL AS "REPRISAL."

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14727, 4 August 1921, Page 3

BALL AS "REPRISAL."

COLONEL'S NOVEL.'SCHEME,

DANCER WITH SINN FEINER

A fancy dress ball, as a "reprisal," given by a company of the Auxiliary Police, under Colonel r S. OForbes Sharp, stationed at Boyle (Ireland), has caused some amusement locally, and has done much to disarm those of the inhabitants who are antagonistic to the so-called "Black and Tans," says a London paper. The policy adopted is that mentioned by "Mr. Lloyd George in a letter to the Bishop of Chelmsford. The country around Boyle, he was told, was almost as bad as it could be. The roads frequently were blocked by tree trunks, but in the town itself "you would hardly know there was a war on."

! The only exciting thing that had happened recently was the fancy dress ball.

"What with the auxiliary jazz band and the auxiliaries' piano and the costumes the young officers and cadets wore, it was a graind affair," said the colonel. "There has been nothing like it in Boyle for years " They showed him a lengthy report of the "Fancy Dress Ball Masque" in the local paper:— "The' Black and Amber Jazz Band of the Ist Bedfords provided the music. Too much praise cannot be given to their wonderful performance. Even when daylight broko it was difficult to get either the dancers, or the band to finish." "The affair of the fancy dress ball," Colonel Sharp said, "was only one of my reprisals. The rebels in the district spend a great deal of time trying to pe: suade the inhabitants that we are a terrible lot of villains. We reply by entering into the social life of the town, and proving that we are not so black as we are tanned. We sent ouf piano, which is the best in town, to anybody who wants it, .and treat the people to a display of football on Sunday afternoons. At first, not a soul came to see us; but now we, have as near an approach to a cuptie gate as one is likely to get in a small town in the wilds of Roscommon. .

"This fraternisation," the colonel went on,_"reached the climax at the fancy dress ball, and led to at least one amusing incident. I had for partners in two dances a very handsome young lady in gipsy costume. She was unknown to me and I to her. When masks were removed, she was pointed out to me as the Sinn Fein leading lady of the town. "She pretended to be very annoyed at having leant on the arm of the person in charge of the Auxiliaries, but I'm sure she wasn't really." The leader of the rebels in the district is an ex-R.I.C. constable, who was once, the correspondent was informed, champion prize-fighter in the force. He still retains his sporting instincts, and not long ago sent to Colonel Sharp a challenge to an open fight—on equal terms. "If you win," the letter went on, "we surrender and give up the fight in this area. If we win you are to evacuate this area, and not to enter it except through a permit granted by the republican army. Trusting you will favour me with an early reply accepting the challenge. "(Signed). On behalf of the men on the run."

As the man was obviously not in a position to guarantee the fulfilment of his conditions the challenge was not accepted, though most of the Auxiliaries at Boyle and elsewhere declared that they would only be too glad to finish the fight in open battle.