From the News

Dated: October 12, 1918

DEPLORED. BY T. P.. O’CONNOR.

Poignancy of. Leinster Tragedy as seen by an Irishman.

Special Cable to The New York Times.

LONDON. Oct.. 12—T. P. O’Connor, in an article In The Daily Chronicle on the torpedoing of’ the Leinster, says: “It takes an Irishman accustomed to cross the Irish Channel to realize in all its poignancy the tragedy just faced in the Irish Seas. On these packet boats you found all. Ireland In microcosm - Superior, landlord, priest, merchant, politician - and often you looked with something of a  renewed call of the blood to some Madonna face of a little Irish girl that was returning from the sanctuary of a convent school; or, if the passage were from Ireland to England. you saw a bride beginning her honeymoon ‘with lovelight in her eye,’ to quote from one of our most .popular of Irish ballads.

Babes often sat in their mothers’ laps, probably young officers’ wife or some young Irishman starting out, as I did. myself, from  Ireland’s poverty and hopelessness, as in old Ireland now passed away, and opening its little eyes on this strange, sinister disturbing portent of the sea.

Such was doubtless the kind of boatload that the Leinster carried on the morning, of last Thursday. I see by .the reports that there were many women and children on board. Stealthily, murderously, the, German submarine approached and fired first one bomb,.’ which might still leave possibility of the vessel’s struggling to land or at least surviving long enough to save its passengers, and then, to make the devilish, murderous work sure, there came a second explosion’ and they were all thrown on the surging cold waves, men and women and babes, and left to die amid their helpless screams.

“Irish men, Irish- women, Irish babes and their blood have now been added to the proud ‘conquest of German culture.’

LONDON, Oct. 12.—A1l the London newspapers today were filled, with indignant condemnation of the “cold-blooded murder and massacre” in the sinking of the. Channel steamer Leinster by a German submarine, which is described as one of the most- shocking pieces of wickedness in the German record.

Committed at the moment when Germany is talking peace, the immediate effect of this outrage, it is pointed’ out, will be completely to defeat Germany’s purpose, for it is now obvious there has been- no .real change in Government, or, if so, the new German authorities are ineffective.

No notice, therefore, the newspapers say, can henceforth be taken of anything uttered or written by Chancellor Maximilian except “unconditional surrender.”

Sir Edward Carson, head of the War Aims Committee, writes to the press asking that the Government insist. before any further notes are received from German sources, that the authors of this ‘‘diabolical crime should be delivered up and brought to justice.”

The Daily Mail says: “Every German submarine and merchantman must be surrendered as one of the peace conditions.”

The Daily News, with equal energy, calls for punishment of the German criminal. It says that to talk peace while Germany is thus murdering women and children would be a nauseating mockery The newspaper adds that the “abdication of the Kaiser would not

satisfy the Allies, for that criminal’s responsibility cannot be cast off like a worn-out coat.”

Viscount French, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in a message to the Irish people, says he is certain the Irish will rise as one man to help bring swift retribution to the people who employ such barbarous methods of warfare.