Parnell's American Mission (1880)

Chapter VI*

Parnell’s American Mission *(1880)

Ireland simmered for weeks over the “papist rats” episode. Gray was a Protestant who had turned Catholic. He had become M.P. for Tipperary, and Archbishop Croke was therefore able to make peace, but at the Election of 1880 Gray shifted his seat to Carlow.

Parnell’s victory in Ennis was the starting-point of his ascendancy, and he and Biggar renewed to me their complaints that O’Connor Power did not yield them support in the House. Power was an indolent man, and the charge of “moderation” at Westminster spurred him on to take the lead at an agrarian gathering in his constituency at Irishtown on 28th April, 1879. Power’s presence there gave birth to the Land League, and made history.

The Irish peasantry had lain prone under oppression since the Tithe movement of the ‘thirties. Spurts of desperation such as those at Scully’s eviction at Ballycohey in August, 1868, the attack on Patton Bridge in 1877, the murder later on of Lord Leitrim and of Leahy and Herbert in Kerry, startled the Government, but led to no reform. The farmers as a body had remained outside the Fenian movement, and a sullen resignation prevailed.

Lord Macaulay in 1849 wrote that the visit of Queen Victoria “won all hearts,” but it filled no stomachs. The heavy tread of the legions of Dublin Castle crushed out hope of resistance to the agrarian penal code until the bad harvests of 1878-9, coupled with the threat of famine, provoked the defiant rally at Irishtown.

No reporters attended the meeting. Power called on me when he returned to London to give an account of it. From what he said I realized that a new portent had arisen out of a leaden sky. He related that footmen in legions and horsemen in squadrons gathered round him to demand reductions of rent. The horsemen, he declared, were organized like cavalry regiments. The police were powerless, and Power foreshadowed that Ireland was on the verge of a movement which would end a dismal chapter. Yet his meeting was unnoted, save by a local weekly, the Castlebar Telegraph, owned by James Daly.

King-Harman, M.P. (afterwards Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Ireland), who read that paper, came upbraidingly to Power in the House of Commons. He and his class watched the trend of politics as stockbrokers do the money markets, for £ s.d. to them was the kernel of the Land question.

when Parnell heard of the success of the Irishtown meeting, he asked Davitt (who had been told to “boycott” it) to get up a second gathering there the following Sunday. At the second demonstration fresh speeches were made which attracted universal attention.

Davitt afterward explained that he would have attended Power’s meeting only that he “missed the train.” He was a lofty and generous character, yet James Daly, who helped at both gatherings, coined the jibe that Davitt would be “father of the Land League if he had not missed the train.” Power refused to come to the second meeting, but the fire they kindled spread into a blaze which inflamed all Ireland. Davitt’s release from Portland Prison, in 1878, was due to an agitation kept up by Power - but prisoners, cut off for years from the outer world, cannot weigh events in golden scales.

Distress was such that William Shaw, leader of the parliamentary party (in succession to Butt), declared at a farmers’ assembly in Cork that he “never met a sheriff’s bailiff without wishing he could take the linch-pin out of his car.” This, from a Bank President and a pious Methodist, was unexpected gospel.

In 1879 a new Chief Secretary for Ireland, James Lowther, M.P. for York, a lively member of the Jockey Club, was appointed in the room of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. His insight into the responsibilities of his office was manifested when on re-election he was asked at the hustings, “what about Ireland? ” For reply he rapped out, “Oh, don’t let us talk shop!”

“Jimmy” belittled the Land Agitation, and denied that want existed. He sneered at the resolutions of Davitt’s meeting, saying one was moved by “a clerk in a commercial house in Dublin, and seconded by a discharged schoolmaster.” Others, he said, were proposed “by a convict on a ticket-of-leave (Davitt), and seconded by the reporter of a local paper.”

Yet, in 1879, the potato crop had failed in the West, and rain drenched the hay and corn harvest. Prices of all products were depressed by the importation of foreign foodstuffs - then a new factor in agricultural affairs. Irish rents had risen after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 until 1878. Then farmers, stricken by the fall in values and shortage of crops, were so hit that a wealthy Cork alderman said to me, “Munster is shook.” How was it with Connaught?

Lowther’s sarcasms wrung a protest from John Bright. Still, if the Chief Secretary did not know the significance of the Mayo demonstrations, Dublin Castle did, for the Land League was not begotten by oratory, but by economics. Parnell now put himself at its head, and attended a meeting in Westport, Co. Mayo, on 7th. June, 1879. There he uttered the famous watchword to the cottiers, “Hold a firm grip on your homesteads and lands.” This phrase was transmuted by the populace into the handier one, “Keep a firm grip on your holdings.” I asked Parnell what suggested it to him, and he told me it came to his mind from the “grip” Biggar kept on “amendments” in the House of Commons.

Stirrings of ambition and resentment may have been ingredients in Parnell’s action in joining Davitt and cold-shouldering Power, but what can lessen admiration for the pluck with which he threw himself into a movement which involved him and his relatives in danger and loss? His rents in Co. Wicklow and those of his brothers in Armagh and Carlow were at stake.

Towards the close of the session Power wrote me:

House of Commons,

4*th August, *1879.

My Dear Healy, -

Finegan told me you would be down to-night, but I have not been so fortunate as to come across you.

If you have seen my article in the *Fortnightly, *I would feel obliged by your noticing it in your letter this week. The cynical *Saturday Review *noticed it fairly enough, but I have seen no notice of it in any Irish paper.”

Ever sincerely,

J. O’Connor Power.

I complied, but owing to his strained relations with Parnell and Biggar, he went to Dublin to examine the position, and wrote me:

”… . Davitt met me on my arrival here - a reception unexpected on my part. He is writing an appeal to the Irish at home and abroad, for funds to carry on the Land agitation, and working hard to abolish the Home Rule League.

I am here just in time for Thursday’s meeting, when the Home Rule League will be “tried for life” and perhaps condemned. Parnell’s resolutions evidently tend in that direction.”

Power’s letter was written from the lodgings of Tom Brennan, who three months later, became secretary to the Land League, when Davitt was made its chief organizer, and Parnell (with Dillon) was accredited envoy to the United States.

Power, who started the movement, was left “festering outside-the breastworks,” without control or influence in the new organization.

On topics less important I wrote Maurice:

London,

22nd October, 1879.

“I was astonished last week to hear T. P. O’Connor, Lord Beaconsfield’s biographer, running down Pitman’s shorthand. He had been in the gallery of the House, but had not written shorthand there, as he was merely summarizing, but he had used Pitman’s as a Dublin reporter 10 years ago.

He said whenever you saw a man in the House transcribing his notes, who was scratching his head over them, and could not make them out, that man was a phonographer, but he believed when he saw a man smoothly sailing along he was sure to be a writer of one of the older systems.

O’Connor seemed to think he could invent a better system himself than the world has yet seen, and, but for this fact, I should be inclined to give some weight to his judgment. However, he promised to give me his views more at large on some future opportunity, when we were better able to go into the matter. I have been giving him some tips for the “Gallery of Irish Writers,” that he is doing for Blackie and Son. I think I may get him to include “Bridget,” of *Young Ireland, *if we could get at her works here.

You may have seen his name mentioned as a candidate for Dewsbury, though if he cared to spend the same amount of money he could get in for some Irish constituency under Parnell’s auspices. This, however, he will not do, as he is opposed to the priests. Sir Charles Dilke, or other Radicals, wish to oust Serjeant Simon, and O’Connor would go in as an English democrat. He, O’Donnell and Ward were friends at the Galway Queen’s College. He is a different man from Arthur O’Connor, who recently spoke in Queen’s County.

The *Freeman *takes care always to make as little of Parnell as possible. It is a rag, and if Parnell had any statesmanship he would go to Gray and insist that the paper should be properly conducted, down to the smallest details, on pain of Gray’s being driven out of parliamentary life.

Were I Parnell, I would threaten Gray with standing against him myself, if necessary. I would teach Gallagher [editor] how to dot his “i’s.” He should be given to understand that Parnell would no longer tolerate the snub of seeing enemy paragraphs and letters get a prominent place, while ours are stuck in a back page…

If Parnell goes to America and brings back money, it will be good, but he is an unmethodic man.”

Gallagher, the *Freeman *editor, was a remarkable person. When a correspondent complained to him that his letter had been stuck into a dark corner of the paper, he thundered, “Sir! There are no dark corners in the *Freeman’s Journal!” *I wrote my brother:

London,

9th November, 1879.

“I have not made up my mind about Parnell’s character, and have felt inclined recently to assume a critical attitude towards his doings. As a parliamentary leader he is unequalled, but for action out of doors he would guidance from abler men. No sensible or sagacious politician would have gone at that Convention with a rush, as he did, without rhyme or reason. O’Connor Power says it will not now be held.”

Still on 21st October, 1879, at the Imperial Hotel, Dublin, the Land League was founded, and resolved to appeal for help to America.

On the 1st January, 1880, Parnell and Dillon - its delegates - landed in New York. Their mission was freighted with the hopes of an awakening people. At home Davitt carried on the work of the League with Thomas Brennan as secretary, and Patrick Egan treasurer. Egan was described to me in 1870 by T. D. Sullivan as a “little prince.” His hand was in his pocket for every good cause. John Barry told me that in 1875 Egan presided over a meeting of the Supreme Council of the Fenian Brotherhood in the Imperial Hotel, Dublin, while two of his children lay perishing of diphtheria. Twice he was called away to say farewell to a dying child, and twice he returned stoically to resume the chair. He had even little jests to make.

A levy was to be laid on the four provinces of Ireland, as well as on the North of England, to rescue the Fenian prisoners in West Australia. The Munster representative flamboyantly promised £5,000. This was beyond the hopes of anyone, so Egan, after reciting the other subscriptions, dryly remarked, “Munster £5,000 - be the same more or less!” He left Ireland in 1883, and about 1889 became U.S. Minister to Chile.

Egan and Brennan were employees of the North Dublin City Milling Company, controlled by J. B. Murtagh, a Longford man, who was foremost in support of John Martin in the contest of 1869. Murtagh possessed the largest collection of newspaper portraits of Daniel O’Connell ever brought together.

My brother, who had left Newcastle-on-Tyne for Dublin to study for his final examination as a solicitor, sent me the gossip current in Nationalist circles. I replied:

London,

24th November, 1879.

With regard to the Land agitation, the game is “touch and go.” Vigour by the Government would squelch it. Anyone can govern with a state of siege. English opinion and the English Parliament would back up whatever was done. The Lord-Lieutenant, by a proclamation, can suspend the Constitution in every county, and arrest whomsoever he pleases, and keep them in duress, without form of trial.

What will “the force of opinion” avail against soldiers and prison bars? It’s all right for Davitt, Daly, Louden and the rest to talk sedition. It is their metier. But I can’t help regarding it as unfortunate that a man so useful s Parnell (while he remains outside jail walls) should be placed in a position of jeopardy at a time when the elections may occur any hour. The moderation of his own language does not avail him a bit if a charge of ” conspiracy” is framed, as then one man is indictable for another’s words. It is possible that the policy Parnell has pursued may carry the day; but the fact that under the Coercion Act the Executive have the movement in the hollow of their. hands forewarns people who, if they are not strong, must at least be cunning… .

I shall be glad to have that translation of *Caesar. *I am now at the Deponent Verbs, damn them.”

Maurice must have asked me for an appreciation of Parnell’s character, for I answered:

London,

4th December, 1879.

“I speak as one of the few persons (I dare the charge of arrogance to say it) who understand (I was going to say “see through”) what manner of man is Charles Parnell. It is not well rudely to remove the scales that secure for the objects gazed upon any of the attributes of perfection, and I find no intrinsic pleasure in the functions of the iconoclast.

I need not enlarge upon those portions of the defence which I could urge; but it is permissible to express surprise that any person could, while granting to Parnell all the public virtues he so shiningly possesses, endow him with private and personal qualities of head and heart - of which they have had but the slenderest evidence.

I regard it as almost a calamity that our political interests compel us to idolize this man in public, so insecure do I feel as to the possible protrusion of those “feet of clay” at any instant before the crowd of worshippers, whom it would drive into irreverent and unriskable derision.

The tone of these remarks might be supposed to demonstrate the existence in the background of some personal griefs, but you will do me the justice to believe my assurance to the contrary. I have formed this opinion, yet (though I don’t think my judgment has been hastily come to, or is illegitimately immature) would I not be anything else but glad if Parnell should finally prove himself the possessor of those qualities with which he has been gifted by friends more liberal than Providence.

As a matter of duty, I felt obliged to make like statements to T.D.S., but there would be no justification for making them known generally.”

Danger was now imminent for the new movement, in which Parnell was showing the highest courage. I wrote:

London,

14*th December, *1879.

“There is a rumour that Finegan and Parnell are to be arrested. If Parnell only is taken, Finegan is willing to go to Ireland and carry on the agitation “in remainder.” He will sever his connection with the *Chronicle *at the end of the month.

How many men would make that sacrifice if they were offered the alternative of giving up their berth, worth five or six hundred pounds a year, or ceasing to attend Irish public meetings?”

26th January, 1880, the Tory Viceroy, the Duke of Marlborough, refused an invitation to dinner from the Lord Mayor Dublin - Gray, owner of the Freeman.

The letter by which friendly relations between Irish officialism and the popular Party were sundered has been misprlnted in some publications. It ran:

The Castle, Dublin,

26th January, 1880.

My Lord, -

“I observe that In your official capacity as Lord Mayor you presided at a public meeting held in the City Hall at which resolutions were passed in relation to the opposition in the West of Ireland to the enforcement of the law and to the measures which Her Majesty’s Government have taken for the relief of the distress existing in parts of the country.

I regret that the character of these resolutions will prevent me from having the honour of dining at the Mansion House on the 3rd of next month as it would not be in my power either to ignore them when they have received your official sanction, or to observe upon them while accepting your Lordship’s hospitality.”

I have the honour to be,

Yours faithfully,

Marlborough.

That a decision so far-reaching could have been taken without instructions from London seems unlikely. It ended the pact made by Daniel O’Connell that a Tory Lord Mayor should be chosen by the Dublin Corporation in every alternate year. It also affected the policy of the *Freeman’s Journal, *and swung the Irish in Great Britain to the Liberal side. Parnell made much of it in America.

On Friday, 13th February, 1880, a telegram reached me from Egan that Parnell cabled wanting me to join him, and that a boat left Queenstown for New York on Sunday morning.

On getting the message, I wired consenting, and wrote my brother:

London,

13th February, 1880.

“Having spent the night drafting amendments for Biggar I have 15 minutes left.

I suppose you will meet me at Westland Row. I would feel lonely otherwise. I think I can get Mass in Dublin. If there are any books that would be useful to me look them out, and have them ready, so that I may decide whether take them or not…

I cannot understand Parnell. He should have taken Finegan with him, to begin with. Now he finds out his mistake.

Tell T.D.S. I am sorry about my *Nation *letters ceasing.”

Just before I left London, the Irish Solicitor-General, David Plunket (afterwards Lord Rathmore), made an eloquent and powerful attack on Parnell (in his absence) for a speech he made welcoming the rain which destroyed the harvests, and telling the peasants it was better their crops should be ruined for a season than captured by the landlords. F. H. O’Donnell made a reply equal in oratorical aptness.

On Saturday evening I caught the train from Euston, and next afternoon sailed from Queenstown by the *Gallia *to America.

On reaching New York I found that Parnell’s campaign to collect for distress had met such opposition from the *New York Herald *that his bankers, Drexell, Morgan and Company, issued an announcement that they had returned all subscriptions sent by donors, and would no longer act for the Relief Fund. Mayor Prince, of Boston, came to the rescue with the “Maverick Bank,” and Parnell was overjoyed at his intervention.

I wrote Maurice:

New York Hotel,

25*th February, *1880.

“I got in last night, after a not very bad passage of nine days. On landing I made my way to the *Herald *office, asked for John Devoy, heard that he was at a lecture of Boyle O’Reilly’s at the Cooper Institute, took a tram thither and made for the platform, where Devoy received me with open arms. He had, it appears, been sent down to the boat by the Misses Parnell to look for me, but somehow didn’t meet me.

After O’Reilly’s lecture the Parnell girls warmly gave me greetings. They had been in a great state of mind as to how I was to be prevented from losing my way in New York, and missing them. I accordingly discovered that it was something “heroic” of me to have made them out when they could not hit on me. I went to their hotel, and wired Parnell last night. He is about 1,200 miles west of here, and he wired back to me to remain here till he got me a railway pass, which, through John Devoy, I will get to-morrow to Chicago, and therefore will go on to-morrow night. Otherwise I would have left to-night.

The Parnell girls are their brother’s sisters! They have a central relief office here, and Anna Parnell goes down every day, though the Committee employs two clerks, to work for hours over the Land League and Relief business. Everything to my surprise is going on splendidly, and the chill impression created in England is the result of the *Herald’s *malevolence. Last night Parnell was in Chicago, where he had one of his most magnificent receptions, but the New York papers, except a small “daily” called *The Star, *suppressed every word of the report sent them by the Associated Press. The demands on Parnell to visit places keep pouring in continually, but John Dillon’s capacity is referred to by Miss Parnell with acerbity, and I find to my dismay that I am regarded as a “Heaven-sent genius” to set everything right. I would not like to repeat Miss Parnell’s comments on Dillon, and you need not mention this to anyone. Instead of blaming Dillon for not being what he never pretended to be, they should blame the counsels that led him to be sent along in that capacity; but otherwise he is doing Parnell good service by speaking and lecturing. Miss Parnell says a lot of people are offended because they cannot get replies to their letters and invitation, and no-one knows where Parnell definitely is, or what he is going to do.

Of course, I know he never opens a letter, and rarely a telegram, and I suppose Dillon has become struck with pen-cramp on account of all there is to do. In spite of their present graciousness and compliments, I shall be the next victim if anything goes wrong.

John Devoy has been trotting me round to-day to all the Irish newspaper offices, and has been very kind. I have not been impressed with New York, and though the prospect of a 30 or 40 hours’ journey is not pleasant, shall not be sorry to get away to-morrow night. There must be an immensity to do when I get alongside of “Charles,” and I don’t think I shall be able to give anybody on your side much in the way of information on account of being so busy. The movement here is evidently going ahead, and is not going to stop or break down. I am astonished at what I hear and see in its favour.

Parnell won’t return unless for a Dissolution. Everybody here would oppose his going back for parliamentary work, and his sister said she didn’t think even a Dissolution would bring him home, but this is nonsense. However, here one loses the Irish home-feeling of the importance of and the necessity for attention being given to these things.”

Fanny Parnell was a woman of fine poetic instinct. Her verses beginning-

Shall mine eyes behold thy glory,

O my country?

will live for ever. She died in 1882 of an overdose of a sleeping draught. Parnell sorrowed deeply for her, and assured me that if he had been beside her he could have saved her life. When I met her she was gay and feminine, without a trace of the poetess or blue-stocking. She chaffed about Dillon because, she said, he left his slippers in one hotel, and his night-shirt in another. Not being tidy myself, I thought these venial sins. Then she complained that John Devoy failed to obey her mandate to steal a black cat from the *New York Herald *office, which, she maintained, brought Gordon Bennett all his luck. I gasped, but she was serious. She was womanly in providing “creature comforts” after my voyage, and loud in praise of the merits of oyster soup, which she for ordered for me.

I reached Parnell at Devonport, Iowa, and pointed out that funds were already collected for distress in Ireland by the Duchess of Marlborough (wife of the Lord-Lieutenant), by the New York Herald,* *by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and himself; that a Seed Potato Bill had been introduced in the House of Commons by Colonel Nolan, which was certain to become law; and that he should invite subscriptions thenceforward for the political objects of the League. Parnell had only been away from Ireland two months, but the situation there had so changed that this struck him as a revelation. After argument, he came round to my view, and later I heard him tell others that nothing amazed him at first more than this advice.

The *New York Herald *was as bitter as the *Freeman *against him. It detailed a reporter named Preston to belittle and misrepresent all he did or said. Preston was a genial fellow - a Yankee Catholic - who in private never reflected the venom of his employer. I spent hours in the train enjoying his yarns on the Hayes-Tilden Presidential Election. At the first Canadian Railway station Dillon left us (for harder work), and at the next stop a giant Tipperary man came up amidst the snows, demanding, “Where is the son of the great John B. Dillon, of ‘48? ” I pointed to Preston, who was instantly surrounded by a hand-shaking, back-patting and cheering crowd. He did not resent the jest, and we moved off to Toronto amidst great enthusiasm for Preston.

Our train had started from St. Louis, where Parnell aroused a great meeting to big subscriptions. As we left there for Canada, I noticed that the sleeping-car attendant was specially helpful. So I said to Parnell, “Let’s give him a good tip,” “Oh,” he smiled, “don’t you remember him? That’s the man who subscribed $100 for us last night.” Even the Cause of Ireland seemed ennobled by such liberality from a train-worker in those lean days.

Mutterings from Orangemen came to deter Parnell from visiting Canada, and Archbishop Lynch wrote from Toronto to Devonport, Iowa, begging him not to risk coming. Parnell’s mother in New York was nervous, because O’Donovan Rossa had shortly before been assaulted in Toronto. Parnell asked me to write the Archbishop that nothing would prevent him fulfilling his engagement. To me he said no Orangemen would attack a Protestant, and explained why the fury against O’Donovan Rossa did not apply to him. He proved right.

In Toronto we found lingering the remains of a controversy amongst Irishmen about the murder of Thomas D’Arcy Magee, the statesman poet, who did so much to promote Canadian Federation in 1867. A fellow named Whalan was hanged for the crime, and, although a dozen years had flown, a wealthy contractor named, I think, McNamee, who gave Parnell splendid help, remained an upholder of Whalan’s innocence. It is due to the poet’s memory, after nearly 60 years, to say that I could find no evidence to palliate the murder after sifting every story. Obscure writers accused the Canadian Government of “faking” testimony against Whalan. This was due to political malice, and was unjust to whoever was in power. My inquiries led me to conclude that Whalan was rightly convicted. He was the agent of a gang of pseudo-Nationalists, and, being plied with drink, shot Magee as e was returning to his lodgings at night from the Ottawa Legislature.

The current excuse for the crime was that Magee, on visiting Ireland about 1866, delivered a lecture in Wexford attacking the Fenians. His MS., given beforehand to the Dublin *Evening Mail, *with which he was earlier connected, criticized their organization, but he found Wexford-men adverse to his theme, and did not speak to his text. The *Evening Mail, *unaware of this, published his MS. as they received it, and his enemies connected the murder with the supposed lecture. My information, gleaned after three visits to Canada, is that Magee was killed because he warned the local Fenians that their plans were known to the Canadian Government, whose informers hired Whalan to shoot him, in order to prevent their baseness being made known.

These wisps of history cannot of course be guaranteed. In 1914, when I visited Ottawa, the late Librarian to the Canadian Parliament, an able Limerick man, Martin Griffin, while deploring the murder, referred to Magee disparagingly. Yet Gladstone lauded his Confederation scheme, and spoke of it as “a voice from the grave.”

After Parnell’s meeting at Toronto we entrained for Montreal, and I doubt whether in the 48 years which have since elapsed such a reception was accorded there to any other man. Before stepping from the train we were invested with enormous fur-coats to protect us against the March frost. All houses were illuminated. Thousands of cheering citizens, French and Irish, greeted Parnell. Next night he met another enthusiastic welcome in a crowded theatre, and spoke fervently. He asked me to wind up the meeting, though I had then little practice in public speaking, and I ended by describing him as “the uncrowned king of Ireland.” This phrase was passed into currency by Preston through the *New York Herald, *although it had previously been applied to Daniel O’Connell.

On getting back to our hotel (8th March), a cablegram from Biggar startled us: “Parliament dissolved. Return at once.”

Parnell determined to go back immediately, and a farewell supper was given him that night. He proposed the health of Michael Davitt, and gave him credit for starting the Land Movement. He had then been in America two months, and I only three weeks. Short as his mission was, its effect was profound. He wired Dillon to remain behind to keep the movement going, and Dillon spoke for five months after we left, in city after city - a most unselfish task.

Early next morning Parnell and I started homewards via New York.

Our train left Montreal in pitch darkness. I doubt whether we went to bed after supper. As our carriage rumbled over a huge bridge that spanned the St. Lawrence, Parnell was gloomy. I tried to cheer him up by reciting the “Psalm of Montreal,” which had just appeared in the London *Spectator. *To this he listened stolidly:

Stowed away in a Montreal lumber-room

The Discobolus standeth and turneth his face to the wall,

Dusty, cobweb-covered, maimed and set at naught,

Beauty crieth in an attic, and no man regardeth.

O God, O Montreal!

Beautiful by night and day, beautiful in summer and winter,

Whole or maimed, always and alike beautiful,

He preacheth gospel of grace to the skins of owls,

And to one who seasoneth the skins of Canadian owls!

O God, O Montreal!

When I saw him I was wroth, and I said: “O Discobolus,

Beautiful Discobolus, a prince both among gods and men,

What dost thou here, how camest thou here, Discobolus,

Preaching gospel in vain to the skins of owls?

O God, O Montreal!

I turned to the man of skins, and said to him: “O thou man of skins,

Wherefore hast thou done this, to shame the beauty of the Discobolus?

But the Lord had hardened the heart of the man of skins,

And he answered: “My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.”

O God, O Montreal!

“The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar,

He hath neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs;

I, sir, am a person of most respectable connections,

My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.”

O God, O Montreal!

Then I said: “O brother-in-law to Mr. Spurgeon’s haberdasher,

Who seasonest also the skins of Canadian owls,

Thou callest trousers ‘pants,’ whereas I call them ‘trousers,’

Therefore thou art in hell-fire, and may the Lord pity thee!

O God, O Montreal!

Preferest thou the gospel of Montreal to the gospel of Hellas,

gospel of thy connection with Mr. Spurgeon’s haberdasher to the gospel of the Discobolus?”

Yet none the less blasphemed he beauty, saying: “The Discobolus hath no gospel,

But my brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.”

Parnell, unsmiling, mused, “I wonder would any man ever pay to hear me a second time!” I reassured him, and we waited for the dawn, drinking scalding coffee to keep out the cold. He hated flattery, but did not disdain an implied compliment. He deserved anything I could say of his labour skill and fatigues.

On arrival in New York that evening we were met at the Fifth Avenue Hotel by representatives from many Irish Societies who came together resolved to found an organization that would embrace the Irish race in the United States. Some were opposed to Parnell, many were extremists, many moderates, and to unite them was not easy. We had to sail next day, and so could not clew together the tangled threads. On 10th March we drove to the ship in a blinding snowstorm, through which, with fixed bayonets, the 69th Regiment, led by Col. Kavanagh, escorted Parnell. On the deck of the *Baltic *he stood bareheaded under the snowflakes to salute the veterans of the Civil War. The storm delayed our departure many hours, and with difficulty I got him to take shelter below.

His young and pretty sister, Theodosia, who was going to England to get married to a Mr. Paget, was a fellow-passenger, and Parnell, during the voyage, often paced the decks with her. He told me, however, that Fanny was his favourite sister - as well she deserved to be.

My impressions of his work in America may be gathered from a letter written on shipboard to my brother:

SS. *Baltic,

20th* *March, *1880. (Saturday.)

Having exhausted expedients to while away the few last hours’ tedium of this trip, it occurs to me to try if I can think of anything likely to be interesting to you or Father. We don’t expect to land until about 4 a.m. on Sunday, and I don’t know if there will be anyone at that time to meet us. So lest our movements afterwards should prevent personal interchange for some time I shall set down notes of matters that you may not be acquainted with.

I think it was the day after I wrote you (Thursday) that I started for Chicago, which is two days’ journey from New York, and on Saturday night I came up with Parnell in a place called Davenport, Iowa, about 1,400 miles from New York. John Dillon was not then with him, as the pair occasionally branched off to cover more ground. There were more invitations than the two together could manage so Dillon sometimes did a smaller place.

I was surprised, and touched also, that night in Davenport seeing Parnell make his collection from the meeting for the Relief Fund - a proceeding, however, in which, when my feelings were more blunted by custom, I subsequently assisted without remorse.

Most of the Western places were towns of not more than 20,000, but the whole population welcomed Parnell, although only the Irish element paid to attend his meetings, or subscribed to his collections. The door-money generally is supposed to go to the Land League, and the collection to the Relief Fund - the former averaging, in such towns as Davenport, about £100 English, and the collection two or three hundred pounds. These may seem large amounts to you, but you have little idea of the small value of money in America. I was appalled at it at first.

As a general rule Parnell’s meetings - collection and door-money - averaged £500 a night; but in the six or seven I was at this figure was only exceeded in St. Louis and Montreal. Speaking of the value of money, I may tell you that boot-blacking, which with us costs 1d., in America is 5d. - ten cents - and is really more than 5d., when you consider that the rate of exchange of English money is four dollars 82 to the pound. Everything else is in proportion - fruit, newspapers and items of that kind.

The hotel system I think worked out cheaper, as, instead of being charged for what you get or eat, there is a fixed rate for a day, which in the best places is not more than about three dollars, and averages 2 .50 - less than you could get meals in England for. Besides, there are no tips to the waiters or servants, and the only “extra” is boot-cleaning, for which the inevitable 10 cents has to be paid, and there is a notice in many of the hotels warning travellers not to leave their boots outside the door, as the proprietor will not be responsible if they are stolen! You are supposed to get your boots “shined” after you have put them on in the morning. There is a barber’s shop to all the hotels, and baths, and they are heated with hot air, which is very comforting; only, as the whole of the American houses are stoved in the same way, I think the race will have the blood baked out of them sooner or later, not to speak of the risk of going into the intense cold out of doors. The abolition of the “tip” system to waiters is not an advantage, as they are not made more attentive by it. I think the English system in this respect is better - at least, when you are in a hurry to be attended to. As a sample of the charges, I may tell you that in the New York hotel where I stayed, I was charged for haircutting and shaving half a dollar.

The conductors on trains indignantiy refuse tips, being (as Parnell informed me when 1 had proposed to give one of them something after he had been very attentive) magnificently paid.

The work was more than anyone will ever give Parnell credit for; and then the deputations at every roadside station, and the shaking hands in the train! It was awful for him, and we had cards and circulars to spread amongst them, letters to write, and speeches to compose, all in the cars I

The moment an hotel was reached another crowd gathered, who thought you had nothing to do but listen to their talk. A quiet half-hour or a five-minutes’ rest was unknown… .

Perhaps I should mention, as I used the words, “spoke at meetings,” that I spoke nowhere except at Montreal, as Dillon didn’t come there, and as there was plenty of “talent” Parnell suggested that if I were to allow myself to be put forward and get my name known, these fellows would soon now allow me to have a minute to myself for work!

I will send you a copy of the *Montreal Post, *containing a fanciful account of an interview with Parnell, which I don’t believe he ever gave, as all the particulars are wrong, even to Parnell’s looking through telegrams before handing them to me, as, indeed, he had other things to attend to. Most of the “interviews “he “gave” while I was there were given by me! Charles graciously signed - but the last, the day we left, to the *New York Herald, *is entirely and wholly mine, Parnell not having a single word to say in it!. .

His sister Theodosia is on board,- going on to Paris to a married sister there Mrs. Thompson. They are the most extraordinary family I ever came across. The mother, I think, is a little “off her nut” in some ways, and, for that matter, so are all the rest of them! Fanny, the eldest of the New York girls, is really clever, and wrote for Parnell a very good article in the present number of the *North American Review, *on the Irish Land Question, which will probably be copied in the *Nation *- one word of which was not by Charles, though signed by him. She has also written a little pamphlet called *Hovels of Ireland, *which has gone through several editions within a few months in New York, for the benefit of the Land League. Parnell tells me she used to write for the *Irish People, *Dublin, when she was only 12 years of age, and that that suppressed organ still owes her thirty shillings for work done!

The indifference of the family, one towards another, is amazing, and there doesn’t seem very much outward affection manifested after the longest absence. John Devoy tells me that the girls wanted him, right or wrong, to steal a black cat out of the *Herald *Office where he is employed, to take away Gordon Bennett’s luck. The mother supposes Parnell is continually dogged by spies, and that her own correspondence is opened by the Government. She used to wire Parnell that she had a detective of her own, detecting the Government detective!

She gave me a huge code which she advised should be used in writing or telegraphing to her, arranged somewhat in this fashion: “The main-street must depend for support on the Irish vote, which holds the balance of power - Rugose.” She remarked smilingly, but in the greatest confidence, that if that happened the main-street *would *look rather rugose! About which I said there was little doubt - seeing that it might be looking that way all the days of its life before I should know any difference, or what was the matter with it! Did you ever hear such a word? She is a very amiable old lady, but why she imagines such a vain thing as that her son or I was going to write or telegraph to her is more than I can understand, as she had no previous warranty for such a supposition.

The sisters both work very hard, and take great interest in the Movement, and are mutually jealous of each other’s efforts - Parnell being sublimely indifferent to them. I was surprised, therefore, to see that he showed a great deal of attention to his youngest sister while on board. She announced her intention of going to Paris the night we got to New York, and neither of the others, nor the mother, seemed in the least surprised, or to care a damn, and Parnell himself said “Ah!” though none of them had ever heard of the project before. They generally live at a New York Hotel, or in New Jersey, and one set of them doesn’t seem to know where the other set is, or is living - or to care. The only religion Parnell himself has is to believe that Friday is an unlucky day, although he smilingly informed me that he was a synodsman of the Disestablished Church. The mother and sisters share his religious condition.

We have had a pretty good passage back, though tedious enough, and all interest in life centres on meals, which I devoutly partake of. The American diversity of diet is agreeable, and I shall be sorry to return to the flesh-pots of Egypt. They eat fruit at every meal, and at Montreal in March we had strawberries… .

If Parnell returns to America I am to come with him, and he speaks of sending me back immediately after the elections, in any case, though how that will be I don’t know, as his ideas are never very determinate.

There is plenty, indeed, to do there profitably. There are organizing Land League Branches, which I am sure will be a tremendous feeder of supplies to the Irish body. Parnell’s present opinion about my future occupation is that I should be engaged as an organizing secretary by the Land League, and go into Parliament! …

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