The Morning Post of Tuesday published a letter in which
the Duke of Somerset apologized for baying said that Mr. Asquith had "shaken hands with the Sinn Fein prisoners" after the Dublin Revolt. In a footnote, the Morning Post stated that in June, 1916, Mr. Asquith had said that he "could not remember for certain" whether he had shaken hands with prisoners when he visited the Richmond Barracks in Ireland. On Wednesday the Morning Post published e, letter from Mr. Asquith himself, pointing out that the Duke of Somerset, in apologizing, had inaccurately stated his own charge, which was not that M.r. Asquith had shaken hands with Sinn Fein prisoners, but had shaken hands with men who had taken part in the rising, and who had been guilty of the death of gallant officers and men of the King's Forces. For that statement, Mr. Asquith said, there was not a shadow of foundation. He visited the barracks together with the chief military authorities, and the prisoners whom he saw were prisoners who had had no part in the Dublin rising, but had been gathered by the police from all parts of Ireland on suspicion of sympathy or complicity with the revolt. Many of them were released almost at once. "So far as my memory goes," Mr. Asquith adds, "and it is corro- borated by one of those who accompanied me, the only person with whom I shook hands was the officer in command of the barracks."
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