Angry ratepayers protest rates increases in Dublin

March 21st, 1916

Yesterday afternoon a large meeting of ratepayers of Dublin was held at the rooms of the Citizens' Association, Dawson Street, to protest against the additional rates which thecorporation proposes to levy on already overtaxed Dublin. Mr Andrew Beattie, DL, TC, presiding, said that almost every town of any importance in the United Kingdom had reduced its rates this year: Hull had reduced theirs by £70,000; Edinburgh and several of the London boroughs had reduced their rates ; Belfast had reduced its rates by 5d in the £, or £35,000. He did not know any place but Dublin that had increased, or proposed to increase, its rate for the coming year. Why was that so? (Applause)

At a meeting of the Athlone Guardians yesterday to take contracts, the tender of an undertaker to supply coffins for infants at 1d, and for young people at 2d each, was accepted.

A Reuters report from Copenhagen records that among the passengers on board steamer Frederik VII, which arrived here from New York, was a German lady, Frau Roewer, whose adventures occupy columns of the local papers. Her husband, a German engineer at Kian Chan, escaped from the Japanese internment camp to New York, where she proceeded from Europe to fetch him to Germany.

The couple evolved a novel plan to evade the British inspection at Kirkwall. It was arranged that Roewer should cross the Atlantic in his wife’s cabin trunk. In order to effect this, he was obliged to undergo a preliminary anti-obesity cure for three months before embarking.

At first the scheme proved successful.

The lady occupied two social rooms on board the ship, and Roewer hid in an ordinary large trunk during the daytime, breathing through a specially made ventilator under the nameplate, and enjoyed liberty at night, none on board suspecting anything, though some of the passengers expressed surprise at the lady’s huge appetite.

All meals were served in her cabin, and an extra supply of sandwiches ordered every night.

At Kirkwall, Roewer left the trunk, as he feared the British inspection , and was caught in a small packing room. He has been interned, but his wife was allowed to proceed on her journey.

Patrick Flynn, West Green, Clara, King’s County, has six sons serving with the Colours since the outbreak of the war.

This is his whole family; he himself was rejected on account of his age.