18 FEBRUARY 1922, Page 2

Perhaps the most carefully planned of the recent series of

murders was the affair at Clones, in Monagkan, where four Ulster special constables were shot in the train before they had time to protect themselves. As a Sinn Fein leader was killed in the fighting that followed a Sinn Fein jury who inquired into his death have recordeda verdict, as might have been expected, that his death was due to an unprovoked attack by Ulstermen. Nearly all the evidence of men, women and children who were in. the train and who were exposed to the Sinn Fein fire tells quite a different story. And why was there a machine-gun posted on a bridge so that it could fire on the train ? Was it there by accident ? Those who believe that it was are, of course, capable of believing anything.