7 MAY 1921, Page 2

A gang of Shin Feiners attacked a prison-van in High

street, Glasgow, about midday on Wednesday, hi order to rescue a Sinn Fein prisoner who had escaped from two Irish gaols. Inspector Johnston was shot dead, and an inspector was wounded, but the attempt at rescue failed. This desperate outrage recalls the Fenian attack on a prison-van in a Manchester suburb in September, 1867, when a policeman was murdered and the prisoners escaped. It is surely time that the Sinn Fein murder- gangs in this country were dealt with seriously. In Ireland there have been several sharp encounters. In Mayo on Tuesday four policemen were murdered in an ambush, and in Kerry on Wednesday eight policemen out of a party of nine were shot dead by concealed assassins. Elsewhere the forces of the Crown have done well. On Sunday fifty rebels were taken in Dublin. Near Mitchelstown on Sunday an ambush failed and five rebels were captured. One of them, who had fired point-blank at two soldiers and missed them, was tried by court-martial, convicted, and shot.