remembered a little story I heard in Dublin respecting a daily
disseminator of priest-ordered politics. It owed some rent for the
premises it occupies on the thymy banks of the odorous Liffey. It
owed, I say, for owing, not paying, is the strong suit of the party it
represents. It was pressed to pay, coaxed to plank down, soothered to
shell out. A registered letter with premonitory twist of the screw
"fetched" the patriot laggards. They or "It" paid up, but failed to
look pleasant. In his hurry the glad recipient of the cash gave a
receipt up to date instead of up to the time the rent was due. The
immaculate organ of highly-rectified morality wished to hold the
writer of the receipt to his pen-slip, to nobble the rent; and being
reproached backed out with:--
"We thought you wanted to give it as a present." The landlord is a
strong Unionist. The rottenness of repudiation is spreading
everywhere. Lying and theft, under other names, would be, the dominant
influences under the new _regime_. But it may be objected--If Irishmen
have no respect for their members, why did they elect them? If they
object to Home Rule, why did they vote for it? And so on, and so on.
These queries at first blush seem unanswerable, but they are not
really so. Attentive readers of later letters will discover the reason
why. Further, it may be remarked, in passing, that questions are more
easily asked than answered. Here is an instance. The facts are
undeniable, staring us in the face:--
The base and bloody Balfour, unaccompanied by men who have been called
his black and brutal bloodhounds, moves about in Ireland unmolested,
with no other protection than that of his sister.
The bright and brilliant O'Brien, the purist-patriot, visiting the
constituency of which he is the senior member, is with difficulty
protected by a powerful force of the police he has so often affected
to despise.
Other Nationalist members dare not appear in Nationalist quarters. How
is this?
To return to the objections given above. Since the appearance of the
bill, Irishmen have been changing their minds. Day by day they dread
it more and more. They still believe that under certain conditions
Home Rule would be a good thing for Ireland. But they begin to see
that the required conditions do not exist. They begin to see that they
have been used by such men as O'Brien and Healy, they see the
incompetency which has reduced the party paper to so low an ebb, they
see the misery and degradation which the Land League inflicted on the
once thriving districts of Tipperary; they saw their neighbours, poor,
unlettered men, dupes of unscrupulous lying eloquence, men whom it was
murder to deceive--they saw these men sentenced to long terms of penal
servitude, while the instigators of the crimes for which they had
suffered, availing themselves of the liberal English law, broke their
bail, and, travelling first-class to Paris, lived in the best hotels
of that gay city on the plunder they had wiled from ignorant servant
girls, being clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously
every day, while their friends the felons trod the tireless wheel and
the housemaids went on with their scrubbing.
The Irish people have seen these things and many more, and, as the
French say, they have reflected. A very considerable proportion of the
lower classes have already changed their minds, but--they dare not own
it. So the process of education is comparatively slow. A small farmer
said to me, "Not an hour's walk from here, a small tinant like meself
was suspicted to be a thraitor to the cause. He was a sthrivin' man,
an' he had really no politics, an' only wanted to get lave to work his
land, an' earn his bit an' sup.
"He had two sthrappin' daughters, as nice, dacent young girls as ye'd
see in a summer's day. They were seen spakin' to a pliceman--that was
all they done--an' four men came that night, four ruffians wid white
masks, an' havin' secured the father, they dhragged the young girls
out of bed at the dead hour, an' stripped them to the skin. Thin they
cut off their hair close wid a knife, the way ye'd cut corn, an'
scarified their bodies wid knives. Would ye wondher we're careful?"
I asked him whether a Protestant could in his district hope to be
elected to any public position, the Board of Guardians for instance
(he was a good Catholic). His answer was an unqualified No. Then he
took time, and shortly proposed the following statement of the
position, which I present on account of its gem-like finish:--
"I wouldn't say but they'd put on a Protestant av he paid for it by
settlin' wid the priest that for certain considerations he would be
contint wid a seat on the boord. An' thin he must renounce his
political ideas, or promise never to mintion thim in public. But,
begorra, he'd have to sell his birthright for a mess of pottage by
makin' a decoy duck of himself!"
In adding this great specimen to the immortal list of memorable mixed
metaphors, I feel that my visit to Ireland has not been quite in vain.
Oolagh, (Co. Tipperary), April 15th.
No. 10.--DEFYING THE LAND LEAGUE.
"Burn everything English except English coals." That was the first
sentiment I heard in "rebel Cork," and it certainly expresses the
dominant feeling of the local Nationalist party, who do not seem to
have heard of the proposed Union of Hearts, or, if they have heard,
they certainly have not heeded. Nor will anyone who knows for one
moment assert that the Corkers entertain the idea. My hotel is a
hotbed of sedition. It is the southern head-quarters of the Parnellite
party. The spacious entrance hall is a favourite resort of the leading
Cork Nationalists, who air their views in public with much excited
gesture, having its basis in whiskey-nourished hatred of English rule.
They walk to the bar, suck in the liquid bliss, and return to the spot
whence they may look upon the beauteous promenaders of Patrick Street.
They prefer the kaleidoscopic change of the streets to the stationary
beauty of the bar, and while admitting the unfleeting quality of the
fixed stars they worship the procession of the equinoxes. On Saturday
last, the day O'Brien died, the Mayor of Cork, with Mayoral chain and
hosts of satellites, might have been seen under the familiar portal,
discussing the proposed public funeral of the lamented friend, once
Mayor of the City, and described as "a gentleman who had, by his
courageous and outspoken utterances, obtained the distinguished honour
of imprisonment by the British Government." Particulars were not
given, as the first two incarcerations occurred under Forster and
Trevelyan. The third, under Balfour, was a term of fourteen days for
assaulting a policeman. The Corporation discussed the patriot's merits
without descending to detail. Outside, the newspaper boys were yelling
"Arrest of Misther Balfour-r-r," but the Corporation were no buyers.
The populace might be taken in, but official Cork know it was the
"wrong 'un," and clave to its hard-earned pence.
Public opinion here is much the same as in Dublin, only hotter.
Respectable people who have anything to lose are, if possible, more
seriously alarmed. The lower classes are, if possible, more bitter,
more implacable in their animosity to everything English.
Nevertheless, the feeling against Home Rule is assuredly gaining
ground, even among the most ardent Nationalists. The great meeting of
last Wednesday showed what the Unionists could do, how they could
crowd a great platform with the intelligence of the country, and fill
a great hall with the Unionist rank and file. The Loyalists have
astonished themselves. They knew not their own strength. Now they are
taking fresh heart, determined to hold out to extremity. The
Separatists--for the Corkers are Separatists _au naturel_--are
somewhat disconcerted, and try to minimise the effect of the meeting
by sneering and contumely; but it will not do. They affect hilarity,
but their laughter is not real. Perhaps nothing shows the shallowness
of men more than the tricks they think sufficient to deceive. And then
the leaders are accustomed to a credulous public. The place is
eminently religious. Cork is the Isle of Saints--with a port and a
garrison to enhance its sanctity. At certain seasons a big trade is
done in candles, on which names are written, which being blessed and
burnt have powerful influence in the heavenly courts. It costs a
trifle to hallow the tallow, but no matter. A friend has seen a muddy
little well, which is fine for sore eyes. Offerings of old bottles and
little headless images were planted around, but the favourite gift was
a pin, stuck in the ground by way of fee. Jolly Mr. Whicker, of
Dublin, who represents three Birmingham houses, saw Father McFadden,
of Gweedore, waving his hat when in custody. A policeman insisted that
this should cease, when a man in the crowd said to Mr. Whicker:--
"Arrah, now, look at the holy man. He puts on his hat widout a wurrud,
whin he could strike the man dead wid jist sayin' a curse. 'Tis a good
saint he is, to go wid the police, whin if he sthretched out his hand
he could wither thim up, an' bur-rn thim like sthraws in the blazin'
turf!"
These people have votes, and to a man support the Nationalist party.
It is proposed to place Ireland under a Government governed by these
good folks, who are in turn governed by their sacred medicine-men.
A member of the firm of Cooke Brothers, a native of Cork, in business
in this city fifty years, said:--
"There can be no doubt that the bill means ruin for Ireland, and
therefore damage to England. The poor folks here believe the most
extravagant things, and follow the agitators like a flock of sheep.
They are undoubtedly wanting in energy. We have the richest land in
Ireland, wonderful pastures that turn out the most splendid cattle in
the world, big salmon rivers, a most fruitful country, a land flowing
with milk and honey. As the rents are judicially fixed there can be no
ground for complaint, but the people will not help themselves. Whether
it is in the climate I cannot say, but I must reluctantly admit--and
no one will gainsay my statement--that the people of the South, to put
it mildly, are not a striving sort.
"They want somebody else to do something for them. They get on a stick
and wait till it turns to a horse before they ride. No Act of
Parliament will help them, for they will not help themselves.
"Look at the magnificent country you saw from Dublin to this city.
Compare it with the black and desolate bogs of Ulster, and then ask
yourself this question--How is it that the Ulster people, with far
worse land, worse harbours, worse position, and having the same laws,
are prosperous and content to have no change? If the Northerns and
Southerns would swop countries, Ireland must develop into one of the
most prosperous countries in the world. The Ulster men are
tremendously handicapped as against the Munster folks, but--they are
workers. Some say that if they were here the climate would enervate
them, but I do not find that my experience countenances this
supposition. Fifty years ago all the leading merchants and tradesmen
of Cork were Catholics. It is not so now. What does that prove? I
withhold my own opinion.
"The Southerners are better fixed than the Ulstermen, but they are
idle, and--this is very important--extremely sentimental."
An avowed Nationalist, one Sullivan, completely bore out this last
statement. "We want to manage our own business, and be ruled by
Irishmen. You say in England that we shall be poor, and so we may, but
that is no argument at all. It might influence a nation of
shopkeepers, but it has no weight with Irishmen, who have a proper and
creditable wish to make their country one of the nations of the world.
The very servant girls feel this, and the poorest peasant woman now
having what she calls a 'tay brakefast' is willing to go back to
porridge if the country was once rid of the English. Never you mind
what will happen to us. Cut us adrift, and that will be all we ask. If
we need help we can affiliate with America or even France. The first
is half our own people, the second understands the Irish nation, which
fought for centuries in the French armies, and, under Marshal Saxe, an
Irishman, routed the English at Fontenoy." This gentleman was civil
and moderate in tone, but he did not promise to walk down the ages
arm-in-arm with England, attesting eternal amity by exchanging smokes
and drinks. "We'll be very glad to see the English as tourists," he
said. "And they will have to behave themselves, too," he added,
reflectively.
A large trader of Patrick Street has most serious misgivings as to the
effect of the bill. He said:--
"I had just been over to England to make purchases. Arriving here, I
found the bill just out. I read it, and at once cancelled half my
orders. We are reducing stock. What Home Rule would do for us I cannot
contemplate. The mere threat amounts to partial paralysis. What the
Cork people want with Home Rule is beyond me. They have everything in
their own hands. The city elections of all kinds are governed by the
rural voters of five miles round. Wealth and commercial capital are
completely swamped by these obedient servants of the priests. Mr.
Gladstone talks of an Upper House, with a L20 qualification. Why, the
qualification for the Grand Jury is L40. Many of the twenty-pounders
round here cannot read or write, and yet they will be qualified for
the Irish House of Lords.
A customer came up and said:--"Gladstone wants to hand the capital and
commerce of this country to men like Tim Healy, who expects to be
Prime Minister, and who will succeed, if the bill passes and he can
eat priestly dirt enough. I knew where he was reared in Waterford, in
a little tripe and drischeen shop."
I rose to a point of order. Would the honourable member now addressing
the House kindly explain the technical term "drischeen shop?"
"Certainly. The drischeen is a sort of pudding, made of hog's blood
and entrails, with a mixture of tansy and other things. Tim would know
them well for he was reared on them, which accounts for his
characteristic career. Do you know that the Queenstown Town
Commissioners call each other liars, and invite each other to come out
and settle it on the landing? Get the _Cork Constitution_, look over
the file, and you'll drop on gems that will be the soul of your next
letter. Don't miss it. And that's the sort of folks Mr. Gladstone
would trust with the fate of England as well as Ireland, for their
fates would be the same. You cannot separate them. The people of
England do not seem to see through that. They will have an awful
awakening. And serve them right. They make a pact with traitors; they
offer their throats to the murderer, and they say, 'Anything to oblige
you. I know you won't hurt us much.'
"The Southern Irish are the most lovable people in the world, with all
their faults, if they were not led astray by hireling agitators, who
ruin the country by playing on the people's ignorance, exciting the
Catholic hope of religious domination, and trusting to damage England
as a great spreader of Protestantism. A lie is no lie if told to a
Protestant. To keep a Protestant out of heaven would be a meritorious
action. And they would readily damage themselves if by doing so they
could also damage England. Englishmen hardly believe this, but every
commercial traveller from an English house knows it is true."
I tested a number of English commercials on this point. All confirmed
the statement above given. Many had been Gladstonians, but now all
were Unionists. None of them knew an English or Scotch commercial who,
having travelled in Ireland, remained a Home Ruler. Such a person,
they thought, did not exist. Admitted that for business purposes the
apparent _rara avis_ might possibly, though not probably, be found,
all agreed that no Englishman in his senses, with personal knowledge
of the subject, could over support Home Rule. Two Gladstonians went
from Chester to Tipperary to investigate the troubles: both returned
converted. Six men from a shop-fitting establishment in Birmingham
worked some weeks in Dublin: all returned Unionist to the core. This
from Mr. Sibley, of Grafton street, Dublin, in whose splendid shop I
met the Duchess of Leinster, handsomest woman in Ireland, and
therefore (say Irishmen) handsomest in the world. She was buying books
for Mr. Balfour, who, she said, was a great reader of everything
connected with Ireland or Irish affairs. Mr. Sibley is a partner of
Mr. Combridge, of New street, Birmingham, and is a leading Irish
Unionist. Returning to the cancelling of orders, I will add that Mr.
Richard Patterson, J.P., of Belfast, the largest buyer of hardware in
Ireland, has cancelled very largely, together with two other large
firms, whose names he gave me. You will remember Mr. John Cook, the
Protestant Home Ruler, of Derry. His manager, Mr. Smith, has written
the Birmingham factor of the house, to omit his usual visit, as the
firm will have no orders for him. A strange comment on Mr. Cook's
theories of confidence. Mr. Cook is an excellent, a high-minded man.
He asked me how I would class him among his party. I called him a
Visionary in Excelsis.
Every self-respecting Saxon visitor to Cork visits the famous castle
of Blarney, seven miles away, to see the scenery and kiss the Blarney
Stone, the apparent source of Home Rule inspiration.
There is a stone there
That whoever kisses
Och! he never misses
To grow eloquent.
'Tis he may clamber
To a lady's chamber,
Or become a member
Of Parliament.
A clever spouter
He'll sure turn out, or
An out-an'-outer
To be let alone!
Don't hope to hindher him
Or to bewildher him--
Sure, he's a pilgrim
From the Blarney stone!
The walk is delightful, not unlike that from Colwyn Bay to Conway, but
more beautiful still, as instead of the London and North Western
Railway a lovely river runs along the valley on your right. The Cork
and Muskerry Light Railway occupies the roadside for the first four
miles, relic of the beneficent Balfour--winding by the river side for
the rest of the journey, through fat meadows dotted with thriving
kine, and having a background of richly-wooded hills. At Carrickrohane
your left is bounded by a huge precipitous rock, covered from base to
summit with ivy and other greenery, a great grey building on the very
brink of the abyss, flanked by Scotch firs, peering over the
precipice. A fine stone bridge, garrisoned by salmon-fishers, leads to
the Anglers' Rest, and here I found a splendid character, one Dennis
Mulcahy, who boasted of his successful resistance to the Land League.
Having told me of his adventures in America, and how his oyster-bar
experiences in the Far West had opened his eyes to the fact that the
Irish people were being humbugged, he narrated his return to his
native land, on his succession to a small farm left him by "an ould
aunt he had." His language was so forcible and picturesque that I
despair of conveying its effect, more especially as no pen can
describe the rich brogue, which, notwithstanding his two years'
residence in the States, was still thick enough to be cut with a
knife. Apart from its amusing side, his story has a moral, and may be
instructively applied.
"'Twas at Ballina I was, the toime o' the Land Lague. 'Twas there
Captain Moonlight started from, an' the whole disthrict was shiverin'
in their shoes. I refused to subscribe to the Land Lague, an' they
started to compil me, but, be the powers, they tackled the wrong
tom-cat whin they wint to coarce Dennis Mulcahy. Threatenin' letthers,
wid pictures o' death's-heads, an' guns, an' pikes, an' coffins, was
but a thrifle to the way they wint on. But they knew I had a thrifle
of a sivin-shooter, an' bad luck to the one o' thim that dared mislist
me at all. At last it got abroad that I was to get a batin' wid
blackthorn sticks, for they wor tired the life out o' them, raisonin'
wid me. Well, says I, I'm here, says I, an' the first man that raises
a hand to me, I'll invite him to his own inquist, says I, for, bedad,
I'll perforate him like a riddle, says I. Well, it wint on an' on,
till one day I was stayin' at a bit of a shebeen outside the place,
when a slip o' a girleen kem to me--I was sittin' on a bench in the
back garden, the way I'd enjoy my pipe in the fresh air, an', says
she, 'Get out o' this, for there's a whole crew o' thim inside going
to bate you.' That was six or seven o' a fine summer's night, an' I
walked into the house an' took a look at thim--a thievin' heap o'
blayguards as iver ye seen wid your two eyes."
"I wint out again an' sat in the haggard, where I could kape my eye on
the dure. Prisintly out comes one o' thim, to commince the row, I
suppose.
"He spoke o' the Land Lague, an' I towld him I didn't agree wid it at
all, and 'twas a thievin' invintion o' a set o' roguish schamers.
"'Ye'd betther mind yer manners,' says he, 'onless ye have yer
revalver,' says he, lookin' at me maningly.
"Faix, 'tis here, says I, pullin' out the tool.
"'But can ye handle it?' says he.
"Begorra, says I, I'd shoot a fly off yer nose; an' wid that I looked
round for a mark, an' I seen in a three foreninst me a lump o' a crow
sittin' annoyin' me. 'Will ye quit yer dhrimandhru?' says I, to the
botherin' ould rook.
"'Caw, caw, caw,' says he, vexin' me intirely.
"Bang! says I, an the dirty blackburd comes fluttherin' down, an'
dhropped in the haggard like a log o' limestone.
"Ye should have seen that fellow! The landlord wid the whole rout o'
thim runs out. 'What's the matter?' says he, starin' round like a sick
cod-fish.
"'I'm afther charmin' a burd out iv a three; 'tis a way I have,' says
I, shovin' in a fresh cartridge from my waistcoat pocket, fair an'
aisy, an' kapin' me back to the haystack.
"'Was it you kilt the jackdaw?' says he.
"''Twas meself,' says I, 'that did it,' says I.
"'An' ye carry a murdherin' thing like that in a paceful counthry,'
says he. ''Tis yer American thrainin' says he, sneerin'.
"I tuk off me hat an' giv' him a bow an' a scrape. 'Is it yerself
would insinse me into the rudiments o' polite larnin'?' says I. Thin I
looked him straight into the white iv his eye, an' give him the length
o' my tongue. Me blood was up whin I seen this spalpeen wid his dirty
set o' vagabones waitin' to murther me if they ketched me unbeknownst.
'Michael Hegarty,' says I, 'where did ye scour up yer thievin' set o'
rag-heaps?' says I. 'Ye'd bate me wid blackthorns, would ye? Come on,
you and your dirty thribe, till I put sivin shots into yez. Shure I
could pick the eye out o' yez shure I could shoot a louse off yer
ear,' says I. 'Anger me,' says I, 'an' I'll murther the whole parish;
raise a stick to me, an' I'll shlaughter the whole counthry side.' An'
wid that I cocked me little shootin'-iron.
"Ye should have seen that shebeen-keeper; ye should have seen the
whole o' them whin I raised me voice an' lifted me little Colt!
"They tumbled away through the dure, crossin' each other like threes
ye'd cut down, lavin' the landlord, struck all iv a heap, the mug on
him white as a new twelve-pinny, staggerin' on his two shin-bones, an'
thrimblin' an' shiverin' wid fright, till ye'd think he'd shake the
teeth out iv his head.
"The murdherin' vilyans want shtandin' up to, an' they'll rispict ye.
I had no further trouble. That was the last o' thim. 'Tis the wake an'
difinceless people they bate an' murther. I heerd there was talk o'
shootin' me from the back iv a ditch; an' that one said, 'But av ye
missed?' says he. 'What thin?' says he.
"Ye should sind ould Gladstone an' Morley an' the other ould women to
Carrignaheela till I give them a noggin' o' right poteen an' insinse
thim into the way iv it. The only way o' managin' me counthrymin is to
be the masther all out, an' 'tis thrue what I spake, an' sorra one o'
me cares who hears me opinion. I'm the only man in the counthry that
dares open his teeth, an' yet they all thrate me well now, an' the
priest invites me to his house. An' all because I spake me mind, an'
don't care three thraneens for the whole o' thim. 'Twas in America I
larned the secret."
Cork, April 20th.
No. 11.--THE CRY FOR PEACE AND QUIETNESS.