Parnell in Prison (1881-2)

Chapter X

Parnell in Prison (1881-2)

The House of Lords gave the Land Bill a reception as hostile as that which it had accorded the year before to the Irish Compensation for Disturbance Bill. I wrote my brother:

House of Commons,

2nd August, 1881.

“The Lords’ amendments to my Coroners Bill increasing the rates, were held a “breach of the privileges of the Commons.” I had to move last night, at Sir Erskine May’s instance, to strike them out so that it has now gone back to them with my “reasons” for dissenting.”

Sir Erskine May, Clerk to the House, was assisted by the watchfulness of a brigade of officials in determining what constituted a breach of the Commons’ privileges. An amendment increasing rates was held inadmissible, and when I demanded precedents they were able to produce many.

As to the Land Bill I wrote:

House of Commons,

12*th August, 1881.

“*From what the Lords are at to-night I shouldn’t be surprised if the Land Bill were thrown out. Randolph Churchill tells me they are talking “very big” privately, and saying they won’t yield. The Government are in a flutter, and lively times seem in store. I suppose an Autumn Session would be the next move if the Lords reject the Bill, and then a Franchise Bill would be introduced and a Dissolution would follow, on both land and franchise…

Ultimately the Lords passed the Bill, and the Liberals breathed more freely. The story went round that Lord Salisbury yielded to an appeal from the Marquis of Waterford (the brainiest of the Irish landlords), although he at first intended to kill the Bill. The Marquis of Waterford, early in the morning, before Salisbury had risen, came to his bedside and almost on his knees depicted the fatal results that would accrue to his class if the Bill were rejected. Much as he hated it, and injurious as he thought it, he convinced Salisbury that, as between two evils, the lesser was that the Bill should be allowed to pass

The peasants in Co. Waterford, unaware of this, determined to stop the Curraghmore Hunt in reprisal for the supposed incitements of Lord Waterford against the Bill. A number of them assembled at a meet to challenge the right of the huntsmen to ride over their fields. Two score farmers were arrests for “illegal assembly,” and taken before the local R.M., Sir Owen Slacke (afterwards of the Kent Coalfields directorate). It was Christmas Eve, but the R.M. sent them to jail for a month in default of bail. Slacke had supposed that the accused, owing to the approach of Christmas, would give bail - a fatal miscalculation.

Five years later I took my folks to Butlerstown Castle to enjoy Biggar’s hospitality, where one of Slacke’s victims told me that, after their release from prison, they determined, because of his vindictiveness at Christmas time, to destroy the Curraghmore pack.

The death of the hounds drove the Marquis to England to hunt with the Pytchley. In a fall there his spine was injured, and he never hunted more.

To-day, happily, the Curraghmore hounds are welcome everywhere under the mastership of the charming granddaughter of Lord Waterford.

Towards the end of the session of 1881, a lobby policeman came to ask if I would show a party of Boston ladies over the House. They had been to the Holy Land, and were mature wanderers. It was the custom then to take ladies inside the door of the Chamber, and stand them on a seat from which they could peer through a glass panel into the House, although no visitor there could hear what was going on. One of the ladies so placed asked me, where is Mr. Gladstone? which was the Opposition? where did Lord Randolph or Mr. Balfour sit? where did Parnell and the Irish members sit?

The session was far spent and no member of the Irish Party was in his seat. Our places were occupied by most respectable Conservatives. I waved my hand generally to the quarter where the Nationalists used to sit, without explaining their absence. The Boston lady turned to her friends, saying, “Ah, wouldn’t you know them, the scoundrels!”

The policeman had not imparted to them the name of their guide.

After the Land Act became law its ushering in officially led to a comical blunder. The Registrar to the Land Commission, William Smith, on the opening day, won fame awry by declaring, “The Court of the Irish Land League is now open.” He should have said “Irish Land Commission,” so Dublin laughed, and Downing Street frowned.

The President, Judge O’Hagan, a timid man, but an excellent poet (translator of Chanson de Roland and author of that lovely croon “The Old Story”), in an introductory address, borrowed from Alexander Pope the phrase that henceforth tenants could “live and thrive.” For this he was assailed so savagely by the landlord Press that he never recovered from the shock.

In the House of Commons Sir Charles Lewis, M.P. for Derry (a Londoner), quoted his ‘48 ballad, “Dear Land,” and the official version of O’Hagan’s address omitted the heretical announcement that Irish farmers could “live and thrive.” This finished popular confidence in the tribunal.

The refusal to allow leaseholders to apply to the Land Courts to revise their rents led to deplorable consequences. An Act of 1960 defined “a lease” to include “an agreement for a lease.” Hence needy landlords dealing with Gaelic-speaking tenants invented “agreements” to defeat their application for “fair rents.”

When the cottiers on White’s Glengariff estate went into court, documents purporting to be “agreements for a lease” were put in evidence against them. The watermark of the paper on which they were engrossed showed that it was manufactured years after the date affixed to the supposed “agreements.” My brother exposed their spurious nature and Judge O’Hagan rejected them. Yet he refused to impound the forgeries or submit them to the Attorney-General for the prosecution of the landlord.

The exclusion of leaseholders from the Act was forced on Mr. Gladstone by fear of the House of Lords, and taunts as to the violation of “contracts.”

Five years later this exclusion provoked the “Plan of Campaign.” The Plan was declared unjust by a Papal Congregation in Rome, which based its decree on the ground that leaseholders could go into court to fix fair rents!

Agitation grew so stern that in 1887 the Tory Government conferred on most of them this right, and later on allowed all lease-holders to go into court. Lord Salisbury denounced one of the Bills brought in by his own Government to secure this resort to the Courts, but Hansard fails to record the indiscretion. The Prime Minister’s remarks, however, were reported in The Times. It took more than a dozen years, and many imprisonments, to secure the leaseholders justice.

As engineers calculate the number of lives that will probably be sacrificed in the construction of a bridge or other work in proportion to the outlay involved, so anyone interested in the course of Irish reforms may estimate from prison records and outrage returns the pressure needed to induce Parliament to yield to justice.

In the last hours of the session of 1881 (23rd August) Ashmead-Bartlett took the floor to complain of the iniquities of the Government from China to Peru. He spoke at length. Gladstone, dressed in a pepper-and-salt garb, donned for an early sallyinto the country, fumed on the Treasury Bench. Mrs. Gladstone was in the Ladies Gallery, and both evidently proposed to catch a train about five o’clock. Hours passed, and the Premier sent up indignant glances towards her, and then shot glaring eyes at Ashmead-Bartlett, who, undismayed, held his course.

Five members only were left to listen. Wharton, ever-faithful, snuff-box in hand, with Arthur O’Connor and myself, on the Opposition side. On the Ministerial Benches sat alone the Prime Minister and Mundella.

Lack of audience never daunted Bartlett. Delighted to have a chance of harrying Gladstone at the close of the session, he coined false perorations pretending to wind up. Gladstone then would half rise to reply, and Bartlett would rebuke him cunningly with such words as “The Prime Minister should not be so eager to interrupt, or to suppose I have abridged my arraignment.”

Everything, however, comes to an end on this side of eternity, and Bartlett, emptied of rhetoric, at length sat down.

The “Grand Old Man” then sprang to his feet, bent on revenge.

He had missed his train and been badgered before his wife. His words, spoken in deep, baying tones, have been softened by Hansard, but I take them from the official record:

“I confess I am rather at a loss to account for the speech of the hon. gentleman; but, on the whole, I think, I am not wrong in ascribing it to the ever-increasing and at length intolerable pains of prolonged retention. (Loud laughter from Mundella, and chuckling elsewhere.) All these stories, I believe, he has been amassing since the accession to power of the present Government. When I consider, sir, the nature of the materials he has been taking in, consisting, not of genial food for the mind, but of ideas and notions which are of the most painful and poisonous character, all intended, no doubt, to be vented without inconvenience to himself, if he had had an earlier opportunity, I am not surprised that he found himself unable any longer to retain them without destruction to the mind itself in which they were stored. Consequently, it was not choice, but necessity, that led him to make the speech which he has given us to-night. (Gurglings from Mundella.) My wish would have been to leave all the observations of the hon. gentleman free course over the whole world, into the minds of civilized mankind, in order that the digestion of the various cultivated races might dispose of them in the proper manner.

During this riposte the basso of Mundello filled the empty House, while the two Irishmen remaining snickered joyously.

Ashmead-Bartlett’s self-esteem was inexhaustible. When engaged to speak in the provinces for his party he insisted that his name on the bills - even when Lord Salisbury was present - should appear in larger type than that of anyone else. When he went to South Africa the natives conferred on him the title of “Silomo.” In the tongue of the Basutos, it was alleged to mean “a wise counsellor.” On getting back he attacked the Irish Party. So I congratulated him upon the insight of the negro tribes who had dubbed him “Sapolio.”

On the 8th September, 1881, Gladstone wrote Forster rejoicing at the defeat of Parnell’s candidate for Co. Tyrone (the Rev. Harold Rylett, a Unitarian clergyman) by the Liberal, T. A. Dickson. He thought that Tyrone possibly reflected the opinion of all Ireland, whereas that seat had hitherto been held by a Conservative. Parnell with the leading members of his Party took a vigorous part in the contest, and Dickson’s triumph was a great check to his policy. Another setback was the rush of 30,000 Ulster tenants into the Land Courts in the teeth of Parnell’s advice to hold back until “test cases” had been heard. Forster was, therefore, persuaded that he could safely strike at Parnell and his colleagues.

Parnell had asked me to choose which of the Munster tenants should serve notices to fix fair rents, as “test cases.” My plan of selection was to take holdings on which improvements had been made and get occupiers the benefit of the “Healy Clause,” which would rescue them from rack rents.

Forty-seven years having flown, I now publish the secret document issued as to “test cases” by me. A copy of it doubtless reached Dublin Castle from the R.I.C., despite attempts at secrecy. *

Strictly Private and Confidential.*

Victoria Hotel, Cork,

3rd October, 1881.

Dear Sir, -

“If your Branch is desirous of having a Test Case from your locality brought before the Land Court, I should be glad if you would call your Committee together forthwith and select a case.

Of the three or four different classes of cases contemplated by the Executive to be brought before the Court, the first and second classes are those to which we are now immediately directing attention. They are: 1st: Those of evicted tenants whose “redemption” had not expired on 22nd August, 1881; and 2nd: Those of tenants whose rents are not more than 20 per cent. above Griffith’s Valuation.

In selecting them, therefore, at present, your attention should be confined to these two classes; and I shall be glad if you will request the tenant in Class II, whose case you take up, to call on me at the Victoria Hotel, Cork, on Thursday or Friday next, 6th and 7th October, at any time between 11a.m. and 7 p.m., bringing with him one of his ordinary rent-receipts, and the particulars of his Valuation.

If you think there would be any advantage in in also sending in those evicted tenants (if any) in whose case you have filled up the forms sent you by the Executive, I shall be glad to see them at them at the same time.

You will, of course, allow no public reference, direct or indirect, to be made to this circular.”

Yours faithfully,

T. M. Healy.

The Land Act became law on the 22nd August, 1881, and Parnell was lodged in jail on 13th October, 1881.

As we were about to marshal the tenants into the Land Courts, Forster arrested Parnell and his colleagues as conspirators against the Act.

To imprison such a man on “suspicion” was unpardonable. He had committed no crime. At worst, he acted as Trade Union leaders do to-day in striving to get better terms for workers. No Trade Union leader is a “master” or captain of industry, though Parnell, being a landlord, could claim an analogous position to that of the assailed capitalist. His brothers, John and Henry, were also landlords.

Forster, the Chief Secretary, was a stranger to Ireland for over 30 years. He knew nothing of the new generation, which was equally unaware of his Famine charities in 1847.

He posed as a Yorkshireman, being Member for Bradford, although born in Southern England. His towzled hair and brusque manner led F. H. O’Donnell to say that “half a pound of pomatum would make an entire change in his character.”

He imagined that Parnell, in advising tenants to await the result of the “test cases,” and not to rush into the Land Court, meant to undermine the Act. He feared that men whose rents were already easy would be driven by the Land League to claim reductions which would be refused and thus that distrust in the Act would be confirmed.

Nothing was further from Parnell’s mind. I was his chief adviser in such matters. He was a landlord anxious to get in his rents, and held a just regard for the rights of property. He abhorred the litigation threatened by the new Act, which bred nearly half a million lawsuits. Gladstone’s measure had no approval from any section of Irish opinion, and it was a purely English concept. Yet Parnell wished to give it a fair trial.

Four days after the date of my circular as to “testing” the Act, Gladstone spoke at Leeds (Friday, 7th October, 1881). There, having spoken of me as “a young man, but a very able man,” he uttered his famous threat against the Land League, that “the resources of civilization are not exhausted!” Important as this was, no Nationalist paper reported it, save the Cork Daily Herald.

British statesmen assume publicity or knowledge in Ireland of their admonitions. By chance I saw Gladstone’s threat in the Daily Herald when travelling to Dublin from Cork, where I had been selecting “test cases.” The speech was not reported in the Freeman, and I therefore knew it would not be seen by Parnell, who was shooting at Aughavanagh, Co. Wicklow.

He was to speak at Wexford next day, Sunday, 9th October, and join our train at Rathdrum. Knowing his haphazardness, I put the Cork Herald in my pocket, marking in pencil the menacing passages uttered by Gladstone. On Sunday, Barry, John Redmond and I started from Dublin for Wexford. Parnell, with James O’Kelly, who had been shooting his grouse, entered the train at Rathdrum. Neither of them had beard of Gladstone’s speech.

I read it for them, and made Parnell take down in his pocketbook in the railway carriage the heads of a reply which we compounded en route.

William O’Brien, who was not present, throws doubt on this incident. I mentioned it in a book published in 1898 and reaffirm it.

Wexford folk are not easy to move, being largely of Norman or Welsh blood, but Parnell stirred them to their entrails. The day after (Monday) he was presented with the Freedom of the Borough of Wexford, for which I then sat. The scene in its narrow streets as his procession wended its way towards the Tholsel was heart-stirring.

His carriage was bombarded with bouquets - “roses, roses, all the way.” Women flew handkerchiefs from the windows; crowds cheered from the footpaths; men went wild with fervour. Parnell, beside whom I sat, said searchingly in a tense whisper, “Healy, we have pushed this movement as far as it can constitutionally go!” I sensed his meaning, for amidst bouquets and acclamations he foresaw that the bolts and bars of a prison loomed before him.

That night we had to speak again, to thank the crowds which surrounded the Imperial Hotel. What I uttered is nowhere recorded, but it provoked Parnell jocosely to say as I finished: “I’m afraid your prospects of becoming Attorney-General are at an end!”

On the next day (Monday) Chief Secretary Forster crossed to London, and on Wednesday the Liberal Cabinet met to deliberate with him. That night Forster returned to Dublin, and on Thursday, 13th October, 1881, Parnell was lodged in Kilmainham Jail.

This arrest I regard as the main blunder in England’s relations with Ireland in the 19th century.

The Land Movement, like most trade unions, was one for wages - viz., how much the cultivator should receive for his labour, and how much should go to the proprietor.

The imprisonment of Daniel O’Connell forty years earlier took place at least after a public trial.

Detective Mallon, who made the arrest, states (through Bussy’s book) that Parnell asked permission to send a letter before the jali gates closed on him. He obtained it and was allowed to leave the cab to post his missive. Of course, Mallon reported the fact to his superiors. Parnell’s writing was well known, and his note, being addressed to Mrs. O’Shea, would tempt the Government to make themselves acquainted with its contents.

Parnell had a revolver in his pocket, and on reaching prison refused to be searched. He knew that had violence been offered him, reprisals would have followed. So did the jail Governor. For people in Dublin, who had been denounced by John Mitchel in 1848 as” bellowing slaves and genteel dastards,” revolted and held the streets for three nights, because of his arrest. Lord Mayor Gray, M.P., of the Freeman, led a deputation of protest to Forster against the baton charges. The reply given was, “Clearing the streets cannot be a milk-and-water business.”

O’Kelly, M.P., Sexton, M.P., and William O’Brien, Editor of United Ireland, were locked up within 48 hours. Dillon, M.P., who had just been released, was re-arrested. The story of these days is well told in T. P. O’Connor’s Parnell Movement, published in 1885 - the best work on the period.

I had gone to London after the Wexford meeting unwitting what impended. On Thursday, 13th October, as I lunched in the Tivoli Restaurant, I heard newsboys in the Strand shouting, “Arrest of Parnell.” Straightway I went to the adjacent telegraph office and wired the Dublin detectives asking had they a warrant for me, as if so I would return. Their reply was amusing: “Not in a position to supply the information you require. Government alone can.”

Next morning I started for Ireland, realizing that “my number was up.” At Holyhead, I was stopped by a messenger whom Sexton had dispatched to stay me there. On the gangway of the mail boat he handed me a letter, and asked me to go back to the pier to read it. I did so, and found it to be as follows:

Thursday night or Friday morning,

1.30 o’clock,

(14th October, 1881)

My Dear Healy, -

I sit down to write to you in the hope that the bearer may be able to meet you before you have surrendered your right of Habeas Corpus. Do not attempt to return to Ireland till you have given us a day or two to consider the situation.

This is the unanimous wish of the Executive, and if ever friendship will lead you to attach any special importance to what I have to say, I ask you, and I do so as the responsible member of the Executive, to stay where you are till you hear again from me.

All of us here have in our minds that as soon as February comes “the old man Gladstone” will be busy at his [word illegible] suspending trial by jury in Ireland, and establishing martial law. I want, and the Executive want you to be there to make the business hot for him. The Irish people, with one accord, would confirm this wish of ours.

I imagine the delight old Lillibulero Forster would feel at keeping you under lock and key next session. Distrust your own emotion, which prompts you to rush into the fight at any hazard. Stay where you are, I say again, at any rate till Dillon, or some of us, can go over and talk to you.

I never, as long as I live, will forgive you if you cross to-morrow.”

In haste,

Thomas Sexton.

At Holyhead a storm blew, making havoc the greatest ever witnessed in that harbour for half a century. Three ships had run ashore. The breakwater was breached for a hundred yards, and the mail steamer had to be warped-out with ropes to prevent her being dashed against the pier. Elsewhere a hundred vessels sank at sea. Telegraph wires were down throughout England and Ireland. Humble folks said that the elements protested against the arrest of Parnell.

I misliked Sexton’s message, but obeyed it, and returned to London.

In a few days I got word to go to Paris, and on reaching there wrote Maurice:

Hotel Normany, Paris,

24th October, 1881.

“I arrived here on Saturday, and yesterday came a letter from a man whom I met in London stating there were warrants in Scotland Yard for myself, Biggar, Arthur O’Connor and Lalor, which were not to be used unless we didn’t keep quiet.

To-day, in consequence of the arrest of Dr. Kenny, Pat Egan suggests that Father Sheehy, who is here, and I should go to America by Saturday’s boat from Havre. It is likely we will do so.”

In Paris dwelt a representative of the American Clan-na-Gael under the name of Dr. Korner: I never met him, but know that although married to a German his son was killed in the Great War fighting for France. His brother, James O’Connor (afterwards M.P. for Wicklow), in 1865 was sentenced as editor of the Irish People, under O’Donovan Rossa, to penal servitude. Korner, when we arrived in Paris in 1881, threatened Egan that if envoys were sent to America they would be opposed unless a contribution was first paid to the Clan. He could not have authority for this from his organization in New York, as time would not have permitted communicating with it, unless by cable, and any cable would have become known to the London Government. His threat, therefore, originated with himself.

During the Parnell Commission of 1888 Sir Henry James cross-examined Mat Harris, one of the treasurers of the League, as to whether anything had been paid to the Clan. The other treasurer, the late John Dillon, had left for Australia. Harris declared that the figure Sir Henry James mentioned did not appear in the books of the League.

Korner, or O’Connor, died in poverty in Paris in 1899. Only for John Barry’s friends he would have been hungry. Whether Egan did anything to placate him I cannot say. Despite his menace I sailed for America with Father Sheehy, P.P., who had been released from jail a few weeks earlier. Soon I learnt that Parnell felt his arrest as a humiliation. When the doors of Kilmainham closed on him, a colleague inside offered him a cigar. He took it and drove his heel against the flags, muttering, “I’ll live yet to trample on that old man’s grave!”

William O’Brien framed a “No Rent” manifesto as a reprisal. What remained unimprisoned of the Land League Executive met in the Imperial Hotel, Dublin, to consider it. Biggar went to sleep during the discussion, but woke up when T. D. Sullivan questioned the “morality” of the document. “Oh,” said Joe, “the theology is all right; let’s discuss its expediency.”

The Manifesto was published next day, and thenceforward it was safer for Biggar to repair to Paris.

We reached New York in November, 1881. T. P. O’Connor had then been some weeks in the United States, laying siege to the pockets of our exiles. We spoke on many platforms together. Governors, ex-Governors, Congressmen and Senators presided over, or attended, our meetings. The U.S. Militia in many towns turned out to do honour to Ireland.

Meantime Kilmainham became a Land League Academy. Prisoners catered it as “Moderadoes,” and graduated as extremists. Parnell used to illustrate this by a story of a Wexford farmer, Denis

Crosby, who was arrested, although he had been boycotted for refusing toto join the League. Then his resentment at Parnell’s imprisonment was so intense that he attended a League meeting the following Sunday. There he was made much of, and voted to the chair, to celebrate his conversion. The Branch thereby strengthened, of course, passed a resolution to adhere to “No Rent.” Next day the local Inspector of Police entrained for Dublin and came back with a warrant for Crosby, who was speedily lodged in Kilmainham. Parnell loved to contrast the old man’s earlier timidities with his “riper” attitude, and told me that one morning Crosby came to him holding out the Freeman. “Have you seen this, sir?” “No, Mr. Crosby. What’s in it?” Parnell’s Cambridge accent (divine high piping Pehlevi) hindered his mimicry of the Irish brogue, but trying to copy it he told me that Crosby cried, “Another landlord shwep (swept)!”

Outrages, of course, followed repression. Forster had been assured by Castle “experts” that coercion was a panacea. Yet in his own constituency (Bradford) criticism grew so fierce that a body of Liberals, headed by the proprietor of the Observer (afterwards Sir William Byles, M.P.), came to Dublin to remonstrate with him. Byles told me that Forster, having shaken hands with the delegation, turned all his staff out of the room, and putting his back to the door, exclaimed, “I’m living in an atmosphere of lies!”

Still, he deprived prisoners like Parnell of petty amusements such as hand-ball. When I drew attention to this on my return from America in March, 1882, Gladstone compelled Forster to restore them. Years later I thanked Gladstone, and he remembered the incident vividly. “Yes,” he said toweringly, “I told Forster while you were speaking that the basis of his Act was prevention and not punishment, and that he must allow the games to be played.”

Our campaign in America was outlined in a letter to my brother:’

Fifth Avenue Hotel,

New York,

13th November, 1881.

“We arrived on Wednesday, and had a fine meeting in Cooper Institute on Thursday. I have been kept going with callers and arrangements ever since. I made a little speech to-day to some Irish societies, but to-morrow we start on our tour. T. P. O’Connor thinks it would be better for us to separate, as there is so much ground to cover, and that we shall probably do alter a while. There is great enthusiasm.

All Irish news here is “doctored,” so it is desirable you should write me all you can.

There is to be a convention in Chicago on the 30th November to 2nd December, a “call” for which has been signed by P. Ford, P. A. Collins, T. P. O’Connor, Father Sheehy, and myself. The Irish World section and Collins are at feud, and we have difficulty in steering clear of their rows. American politics, like English politics, are a source of division amongst our countrymen. However, they are all ready to do what they can to help Ireland. The demonstrations of their affection and patriotism are astonishing. Poor Ireland! It is a wonder how little has been accomplished for her in seven centuries.

O’Donovan Rossa spoke at meetings for the Gaelic League to-night. He made a further “amende” in the matter about which he wrote that letter which T.D.S. sent on. I don’t know if you read it before sending it to me. Rossa had been represented as saying, when someone sneered at me, that he knew my father, who was “a decent man.” The sneers imputed to Rossa he never made. He seems a harmless fellow. How he found fame puzzles me. To-night he prophesied Irish freedom within ten years! So look out.”

In Chicago, 30th November, 188i, a Convention was held raised which a million dollars for the Irish Cause.

To our hotel there a Clerk at the Table of the House of Commons, named Nicholson, was dispatched to identify us. Sir William Harcourt, Home Secretary, was on the alert, and charges of treason were predicted by the London World. When we returned John Bright assailed us for speeches which he alleged we made at the Convention. None of us had addressed that body, though after it ended we spoke at a public meeting in Chicago.

T. P. O’Connor was impressed by the American method of railroading Conventions without debate. The process was most interesting. First a “temporary chairman” was appointed to “call the meeting to order.” Then came a “Committee on credentials” to verify the mandates of the delegates. Next an adjournment took place until the “credentials” were accepted by scrutineers. After this the delegates assembled in “permanent session.” A fresh chairman now took command, and delivered an address. Then a committee on “resolutions” was appointed and the Convention again adjourned. Everything was handled by a “rubric” as if life or death depended on the observance of form. Next this committee hammered out during the night its proposals. We sat from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., and sentries were posted before the doors.

John Finerty (afterwards Congressman), editor of the Chicago Ctizen, told me that but for this precaution a reporter might put an ear to the keyhole, or get a step-ladder to reach over the transom” (a glass panel which topped every door in American hotels). The “Committee on Resolutions” reported its conclusions on the third day. These were read to the Convention and the chairman asked, “Are you ready for the question? ” Thereupon delegates thundered assenting shouts of “Question! Question!”

The chairman smiled and forthwith put the resolutions without debate! All was over, yet during the three days’ sittings individual delegates were voiceless. No one, however, left dissatisfied; and probably on their homeward journey they warbled “Sweet land of liberty, of thee we sing!” T. P. O’Connor quoted me as saying, “This is the land of liberty, but also the land of the previous question.” In America the “previous question” is equivalent to what in 1883 became known in the House of Commons as “closure.”

The hotel in Chicago where we stayed, and to which the Clerk of the House of Commons came to identify us, was vast. A negro porter in the cloakroom took the hats, sticks or coats of guests, and gave no ticket. Hundreds thronged on him, but when they left he handed each his proper article. Tennyson’s “plump head waiter at the ‘Cock’” could not have done as much.

The United States was not then a land of Prohibition, so I bear admiringly in mind the skill of two barmen in white jackets who at 6.30 a.m., after we had sat up all night on the ” Committee on Resolutions,” served me with a “John Collins.” The Convention was next to meet at 10 a.m., and I wished for something that would send me to sleep for a few hours after the fatigue we had gone through. The barmen mixed ingredients which I cannot recall, and standing apart from one another four or five feet, they slung a liquid from tumblers to each other without spilling a drop.

We drove back at 9.30 a.m. with an Australian Irishman to the Convention. Rain had fallen and the thick black mud of the streets overjoyed him. Sticking his head out of the window of the carriage to gaze on the streets bearing ugly telegraph posts strung with wires (since removed), he ecstatically muttered, “what fine wheat soil!

Reporters invaded the hotels for “items,” and would not be denied. Ten years later William O’Brien, during the Parnell Split in December, 1890, was so worried by them that he sent for the hotel manager to beg him not to admit the Press. With a sigh the manager responded, “We had Madame Patti here a year ago, and Signor Nicolini made the same request. In homage to the Diva I agreed. Next day there appeared in Chicago papers a rumour that small-pox had broken out in our hotel, and we had not a guest for six months!” No doubt since then things have much improved.

After the Convention I went South and found the Gilbert and Sullivan opera, “Pinafore,” more popular than it was in London. Americans regarded it as a satire on the Admiralty because of the appointment of W. H. Smith as First Lord by Disraeli.

Uin hotels two warning were posted insider the bedroom: “Don’t put out your boots!” “Don’t whistle ‘Pinafore’”

To-day in the United States Gilbert and Sullivan are old-fashioned. Only in Canada can they be borne.

I wrote my brother:

St. Nicholas Hotel,

Decatur, Illinois,

18th December, 1881.

“Travelling every day, and speaking every night, even going from one of Heaven’s mansions to another would, I suppose, bother a man! I feel home-sick. The eternal brown grass of the prairies, the flat country, the wooden houses, the timber fences, the dreadful roads, make me sigh for “Banba of the Streams,” with its green, green vesture.

If Ireland had any sort of a chance there would be no place like it. The roads in this State are awful. In fact, there are no roads, only ploughed land, with boggy ruts two or three feet deep. There is no stone or even gravel or pebbles in this part of Illinois. The soil is so rich that it goes down six feet, and it will take years before they have roads like Ireland’s.

The expense of importing stone will be great. Hence frost and snow is the farmer’s prayer here in winter; and this season there is very little of either, so all trade through the State will be brought almost to a standstill, as far as agriculture is concerned.”

Louisville Hotel,

Kentucky,

22nd December, 1881.

” … There are Irish farmers here who came in 10 or 20 miles to hear our “lectures,” as they call them. They are all well-to-do. Everybody eats meat three times a day. In fact, it’s hard to see what difference there is between their breakfasts, dinners, and suppers; and they drink tea or coffee at them all.

Americans think their country the most wonderful in the world. To hear them “blowing” about their railway cars, where a man is stuffed into a crowd in uncomfortable seats, you would expect the gates of Paradise were opening for you. Everybody believes it’s a duty to shake hands, and to introduce you to some friend, who does likewise; and every citizen asks you the same set of questions, until you wish you or they were at Jericho.

The Irish get more American than the Americans themselves. They lose something of the politeness they possess at home, and assume a rugged independence and bluntness that sometimes tire one of these virtues. Lightheartedness seems to vanish, and they take on a sombreness which exteriorly belongs to the Americans.

An audience here is a different thing from ours, or even an English one. They seldom become enthusiastic, and rarely applaud till the end. They listen with a cruel intentness, sparing their cheers. Hence one doesn’t make what you would call a “speech,” but an “address.”

The receipts of a meeting at a shilling a head are never less than £20, in the larger towns they are £30, £40, £50, £60, £100; and at Boston y must have been £400. In the last fortnight lecturing in towns of not more than 12,000 to 20,000 people, I must have netted £500 for Ireland.

At a few places they made no charge for admission, but took a collection after the lecture, and it comes to much the same thing. They are a gallant lot… .

There is so much to be done here I shall have trouble to get T. P. O’Connor to come back with me - first, because of the service he can do here, and second, because when he goes back he expects that the work he got last session from the English Press will be withdrawn.

I will not leave America before the 7th February, when Parliament opens, in order to see whether Parnell and the other prisoners are released, and what line the Government are going to take. I shall be in New York that day, ready to sail then, or the day after. If the Government intend to take us off the vessel at Queenstown, they will not know what one we are coming by. It will be cabled from New York that we have left via Havre. Every telegram is inspected by the Government, so beware of mentioning anything that would give them a clue. During the excitement Forster caused a wire to be connected with his office in the Castle, where all telegrams were tapped and read off for him… .

My throat is rough from speaking every night. They haven’t even given me Christmas Day off! If the Arkansas people stand it I can. I am to be there next Sunday, with slight misgivings as to mosquitoes and the sunny south.

As to the” Key to the Land Act” - the day before I left Dublin I lunched with Dillon, whom I hadn’t seen since his release, and he told me that he was very near writing to the Freeman, so strongly had he felt, after their article on the appearance of the “Key” - because it impliedly favoured the Land Act, and assumed that the farmers would avail of it.

Egan opposed my election on the Executive of the League on the same ground, and Dillon supported him. I would, therefore, wish you to use all your discrimination. If Gill and Son behave reasonably, and you withdraw the book, I should be better pleased. This, however, I shouldn’t imagine Gill will consent to, in view of his position as M.P. for W Meath].”

Accounts of our meetings in American papers were often odd. The reporters disdained shorthand and “just tried to get the story.” In Indianapolis I referred to the causes which led to Gladstone’s Act of 1869 disestablishing the Protestant Church. Next day the local newspaper (edited, I think, by Murat Halstead) announced that I was “in favour of disendowing the Catholic Church.” My Irish friends were scandalized, and asked me to send what they called “a card” to the editor. So I called with a letter, and found (what is unusual in America) this gentleman rather haughty. “Oh,” he piped, “I know all about you! I have read Pigott’s article on the Land Leaguers.” (Pigott had just made a contribution to Blackwood’s Magazine.) Still, he printed my “card,” though doubting its gospel.

Years afterwards I told this to Harold Frederic, London correspondent of the New York Times, little knowing that Murat Halstead was a Republican while Frederic was a Democrat, or dreaming he would print it. Yet he cabled some account of my tale to his paper on the eve of an election. Halstead had, meanwhile, won Irish friends, and they telegraphed me asking for a denial. I had not authorized publicity, and said so, for to intrude on American politics was the last thing I designed. I was glad to find no harm resulted, as Halstead became U.S. Minister to Russia soon after.

Everywhere we were hospitably entertained. In Illinois a priest (Dr. Butler, I think), who died on his way to Rome, where he was to have been consecrated Bishop, was specially kind. He had been chaplain to “Mulligan’s Brigade” during the Civil War, and was taken prisoner and led out to be shot by the Confederates. He claimed that his life was spared because he told them if he was executed, Irishmen in their ranks would drop their rifles.

He was as bitter against the South as if the conflict still raged, and knowing I was journeying towards Louisiana and Texas, he wished to infuse into my mind some of his own feelings. So he brought to dinner an Irishman who had been imprisoned in Libby. Never did I see so sad a specimen of what Edmund Spenser called an “anatomy of death.” More than sixteen years had passed since his release, yet his face was shrunken and his head as bare of hair as a billiard ball. In a low monotone, but without bitterness, he told how the Northern captives were so short of food in Libby that they used to scratch the jail-yard for worms or slugs to keep themselves alive. If they went beyond an imaginary line which was called the ” death line,” and which Jail-Governor Wirtz refused to mark, a sentry fired to kill.

Wirtz was the only Confederate executed after Lee’s surrender in 1865. His excuse was that the North refused to exchange prisoners, and that only by blockade-running could the South obtain medical stores, while it had little food.

I went south through Memphis and New Orleans to Texas. Then I reached Louisiana I found our countrymen there as vehement on the Southern side as their Northern brethren were for the Federals. The late Captain John Fitzpatrick gave me a royal welcome in New Orleans, of which he was “Boss.” His son, in 1925, was elected to a post resembling his father’s. When I left for Texas, Fitzpatrick put me in charge of two Confederate ex-brigadiers on the steamer crossing the Mississippi. Negro emigration from Louisiana had begun and, as we stood on the poop looking down into the hold, we saw many blacks huddled together with their household goods all cluttered up. The sight filled me with sadness, for I thought of Irish evictions and their sequel.

I imagined my regret was chared by my companions, till one of them, removing his cigar, drawled, “Isn’t that a sad spectacle, Brigadier?” “It is, indeed.” “Yes,” the other mused, “to think that only 20 years ago that lot would have fetched $50,000 dollars!”

In Texas a cultured friend named, I think, O’Dwyer, was full of stories of the Civil War. He lived in the “Mission” region and took me to a ruined Spanish church with a sawed-down statue of the Blessed Virgin which remained in the porch.

One of his stories of the war related to a fort on the Sabine Pass where a river divides Louisiana from Texas. It was considered indefensible by the Confederates, who evacuated it when a powerful Federal fleet hove in sight. An officer named Dowling, with a handful of men, asked to be allowed to remain and defend it. Leave was granted, and by feints and camouflage they so disposed of their cannon that two gunboats struck their colours. For this the Confederate Congress, on the 8th February, 1864, passed a vote of thanks - the last before Lee’s surrender.

My friend told of the jauntiness of Dowling after the surrender at Appomatox when peace came. The North feared that a Confederate remnant under General Jubal Early would retreat to Texas to fight there, despite Lee’s surrender. Thither went Dowling. General Early, however, obeyed Lee, and Dowling had no resource except to open a restaurant in Galveston. Every rebel sympathizer patronized it, and his gain and fame grew great.

The North moved an army into Texas, and one of its officers thought a lesson must be taught him. So a Colonel ordered a banquet at his restaurant. Dowling prepared it richly, and at it there were loud toastings of “Old Glory” and salvoes for Grant and the memory of Lincoln. When the feast ended a waiter was told that the proprietor would be paid in person.

Behind the counter stood Dowling, bowing amiably to his old enemies. The bill was, perhaps, $50, and to pay it the Northern Colonel handed out a hundred-dollar Confederate note - not worth the ink printed on it. Dowling paled and flushed at the insult to the Lost Cause. Then cheerily he broke silence, “Oh, a hundred-dollar note! Your change, Colonel,” and gave him fifty dollars in gold! Texas rang with this.

Next morning, of course, the Colonel returned with apologies and “greenbacks” to square the bill.

Southern feeling still palpitated 47 years ago. The late Bishop Keeley, of Savannah, who served as a private with the Confederates, chuckled over a rune which he recited for me:

I am a Southern Rebel, that’s what I am,

And for this fair land of freedom I don’t give a damn,

I’m glad I fought agen it, and I only wish we’d won,

And I don’t want no pardon for nothing that I done.

I followed old “Mas Robert” * for four year nigh about,

I got wounded in three places and starved at Point Look-out.

I cotched the rheumatism a-camping in the snow,

But I killed a chanst of Yankees, and I’d like to kill some mo’.

Two hundred thousand Yankees lie stiff in Southern dust.

We got two hundred thousand before they conquered us.

They died of Southern fever and Southern steel and shot.

I wish it was two million instead of what we got.

And now the war is over I can’t fight ‘em any more,

But I ain’t a-goin’ to love ‘em, and that is certain sure.

I want no one-horse pardon for what I was and am,

And I won’t be reconstructed, and I do not care a damn.

* [‘Mas Robert’ = General Lee]

Wherever we went, North or South, an active propaganda against the Irish Cause prevailed. All Press cables from London were adverse. An editor in Galveston, Texas, on the 1st January, 1882, showed me a message alleging that a boy at Glengariff, Co. Cork, put pins into turnips which he fed to the cows of a landlord named Lyne.

On returning to Ireland I found that such a charge had been made, but that the local magistrates (none of them Nationalists) dismissed it as absurd. It was trumped up to keep a police protection-post at some house where a profit was made out of the R.I.C.

Crimes selected for cabling to America related mostly to injury to cattle. Attacks on “dumb animals” were boomed to repel sympathy from Ireland.

Parnell had advised me that in Chicago a great journalist named Stone, of the Associated Press, refused to be bribed by the landlord syndicate to circulate false news.

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