The shocking news from Dublin dominated the headlines in the final week of April.Prime Minister Asquith told the House of Commons that martial law had been proclaimed in the city and county while troops had arrived from Belfast and England.He described the situation as being satisfactory.
All mail trains between Manchester and Ireland had been suspended from Exchange station and a group of travelers from Manchester had been turned back from Holyhead and returned to the city.Events were also having an effect on the meat supply with no Irish cattle coming through to the city.One buyer reporting that he had to go to Scotland to procure his meat.

Later that week, the first detailed reports would arrive of trenches being dug in the city, with many casualties.The Manchester Guardian reported the account of a man who was in the Post Office when the fighting began.The rebels came in, seized the building and began firing from the windows at anybody in uniform, putting their number at between 200-300.

The British HMS Russell was sunk after hitting a mine in the Mediterranean, seven hundred men had been saved but one hundred and twenty four were still missing.She was the ninth battleship to be lost since the beginning of the war.

A soldier in Salford was murdered that week.Private John Francis Kelly was found in the guard room of the Cross Lane Drill Hall with his throat cut.Another Private William Taylor was in custody on a charge of murder.Kelly was twenty seven and had been in the army for seven years and had returned from fighting in the Dardanelles with the Lancashire Fusiliers 

Manchester’s Coroner’s court heard the tragic tale of the death of a three year old boy from Chorlton on Medlock who was accidentally hanged on the railings of St Luke’s Churchyard after climbing on them and getting his coat caught.The jury returned a verdict of accidental death and recommended that the church authorities should take steps to prevent children trespassing on their property.

Manchester Police Court heard the case of a workhouse inmate who climbed to the top of the Royal Exchange Building and began to climb the crane, a police constable followed him up and persuaded him to come down.The defendant told the court that he had left the workhouse in Crumpsall to join up at the Town Hall but had been rejected and claimed the crane to see what the view was like from an aeroplane. He was allowed to leave on the proviso that he returned to the workhouse.

There was an epidemic of measles throughout Manchester and Salford, over two thousand cases had been reported with thirty seven deaths so far.

The Co-op released a report that week saying that the purchasing power of the pound only equated to 11s and 2d compared to at the beginning of the war.The Board of Trade had earlier said that the cost of living had increased by forty nine per cent since the beginning of the war

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