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Show IINGENDIARIES BUSY ALL OVERJRELAND WHILE GENERAL UPRISING ON EASTER FAILED, THERE WERE MANY FIRES. Plan of Sinn Feiners Was to Destroy All British Records and Plunge the Country's Administration Into Confusion. Loudon. Tlie Sinn Fein plan tn destroy de-stroy all Jlntish records and plunge Hie country's ndininistrat Ion Into confusion con-fusion was put into operation Saturday Satur-day night and Sunday, when fires were started in official buildings all over Ireland. Belfast was isolated from the rest of the world. The land wires and cable to England were cut and the only means of communication was the telephone. tele-phone. The Grand Central hotel, In which are located the pensions, labor and other departments, and the Bank of Ireland were entered during the night and a large number of documents were destroyed. The raiders thon tried to burn the building, but a fire brigade prevented this. Three separate blazes were found in the income tax office. The city postoffices and public buildings -were under strong guard Sunday. Dispatches Sunday night stated the city is calm and the authorities have the situation in lnuid. Attempts also were made to set fire to the Belfast customs house and two excise offices. In every case fire was started by pouring petrol over floors' and furniture furni-ture and then applying a match. Most of the men who started the blaze were disguised as postmen. Some were masked and armed. When communications with Belfast were partially restored it was discovered discov-ered that a wave of destruction had swept over the province of Ulster. Police barracks in all parts of the province had been burned down or blown up. The conspirators sought out mostly the smaller towns. Revenue offices also were ignited on a large scale. The Irish Republican flag was hoisted hoist-ed wherever the conspirators carried out their work of destruction. At Queenstown, Sinn Feiners raised the republican colors on the flagstaff in front of the harbor commissioner's official residence. Then they cut the halyards and greased the pole to prevent pre-vent the removal of the Sin Fein emblem. em-blem. Throughout Counties Cork and Clare disguised and armed men destroyed de-stroyed police barracks. At this cabling the record of police barracks destroyed in the various counties: is as follows: Limerick, 6 ; Clare, 17 ; Down, 5 ; Armagh, Ar-magh, 2 ; Roscommon, 4 ; Cork, 4 ; Tyrone, Ty-rone, 1. Total, 34. The Dublin correspondent of the London Daily Herald quotes a Sinn Fein leader as saying there will be no rebellion in Ireland, it being generally gen-erally realized that a rising would simply sim-ply result in a massacre. |