Much ridicule had been poured on the drillings with dummy muskets.

Ulster evidently decided to push the matter a step further.

A consignment of one thousand rifles with bayonets, in cases marked "electrical fittings," was seized at Belfast on June 3, 1913.

Other incidents of the same nature followed.

It was argued, by those who sought to represent the whole campaign as an elaborate piece of bluff, that the weapons were useless and that they were deliberately sent to be seized.