itish artillery quite
unnecessarily reduced the centre of Dublin to ruins, and the British
commanders killed their leading prisoners of war in cold blood morning
after morning with an effect of long-drawn-out ferocity. Really it was
only the usual childish petulance in which John Bull does things in a
week that disgrace him for a century, though he soon recovers his good
humor, and cannot understand why the survivors of his wrath do not feel
as jolly with him as he does with them. On the smouldering ruins of
Dublin the appeals to remember Louvain were presently supplemented by a
fresh appeal. IRISHMEN, DO YOU WISH TO HAVE THE HORRORS OF WAR BROUGHT
TO YOUR OWN HEARTHS AND HOMES? Dublin laughed sourly.

As for me I addressed myself quite simply to the business of obtaining
recruits. I knew by personal experience and observation what anyone
might have inferred from the records of Irish emigration, that all an
Irishman's hopes and ambitions turn on his opportunities of getting out
of Ireland. Stimulate his loyalty, and he will stay in Ireland and
die for her; for, incomprehensible as it seems to an Englishman, Irish
patriotism does not take the form of devotion to England and England's
king. Appeal to his discontent, his deadly boredom, his thwarted
curiosity and desire for change and adventure, and, to escape from
Ireland, he will go abroad to risk his life for France, for the Papal
States, for secession in America, and even, if no better may be, for
England. Knowing that the ignorance and insularity of the Irishman is a
danger to himself and to his neighbors, I had no scruple in making that
appeal when there was something for him to fight which the whole world
had to fight unless it meant to come under the jack boot of the German
version of Dublin Castle.

There was another consideration, unmentionable by the recruiting
sergeants and war orators, which must nevertheless have helped them
powerfully in procuring soldiers by voluntary enlistment. The happy home
of the idealist may become common under millennial conditions. It is not
common at present. No one will ever know how many men joined the army
in 1914 and 1915 to escape from tyrants and taskmasters, termagants
and shrews, none of whom are any the less irksome when they happen
by ill-luck to be also our fathers, our mothers, our wives and our
children. Even at their amiablest, a holiday from them may be a tempting
change for all parties. That is why I did not endow