Looking back, these constables who resigned appear to have been mean deserters of their comrades, but after-events have to a certain degree justified their action. They were certain that, no matter how often the British Government swore to see its loyal servants through, in the end it would let them down, and the pity is that they were right. True, there was a day when an Englishman’s word was as good as his bond, but that day appears to be quite out of date. Or perhaps it does not apply to politicians! Doubtless greatly surprised at their initial success, the chiefs of the I.R.A. now determined on a much more ambitious form of warfare—namely, the formation of flying columns to harry and murder the Crown forces throughout Ireland, not excepting Ulster; at the same time they started a tremendous campaign of propaganda in England and the States. The idea of breaking up the British Empire by means of a number of small flying columns of corner-boys in Ireland, and green pamphlets at John Bull’s breakfast-table, appears laughable; but Sinn Fein has shown itself a wonderfully astute judge of the mentality of the present-day politician in England. The summer of 1920 saw the greater part of the south and west in the hands of the Republic, who not only boasted an army in the field, but ran their own police, law-courts, and Local Government Board. It was not an uncommon occurrence for a man to be first arrested by the R.I.C. for some offence, and then by the I.R.A.; sometimes there used to be quite an exciting race between these two forces to see who could catch the culprit first. The first flying columns were made up of determined and hard-up corner-boys collected from every district in the south and west, and were sent out under specially qualified leaders to murder as many police and soldiers as they could, no matter whether they were armed or unarmed, asleep or awake. The price for the murder of a policeman rose gradually to £60, and eventually to £100. With a terrorised population and a Government which refused to function, these columns had everything in their favour, and carried on their campaign of murder and assassination practically unhindered at first. Their chief channels of information were the post-office and young girls. The larger proportion of post-office officials were openly disloyal, postmasters even being caught red-handed decoding important police and military wires for the information of the I.R.A. And young girls not only obtained information by walking out with policemen and soldiers, but also carried the gunmen’s arms to and from a murder or ambush.