usually fairly well looked after. To be sure, the
Irish could run away and not be brought back in chains; but in Eighteen
Hundred Seventy-six, a bill was introduced in Parliament restricting
Irish immigration, and forbidding any tenant who was in debt to a
landlord leaving the country without the landlord's consent.

Had this bill not been bitterly opposed, the Irish people would have
been subject to peonage equal to absolute slavery. As young Parnell grew
he was filled with but one theme: how to better the condition of his
people.

In arousing public sentiment against the bill, young Parnell found his
oratorical wings.

Shortly after this he was elected to Parliament from County Meath. He
was then twenty-seven years old. He had never shaved, and his full brown
beard and serious, earnest, dignified manner, coupled with his
six-foot-two physique, attracted instant attention. He wore a suit of
gray, Irish homespun, but the requirements of Parliament demanded black
with a chimney-pot hat--the hat being always religiously worn in
session, except when the member addressed the Chair--and to these
Piccadilly requirements Parnell gracefully adjusted himself.

Parnell seemed filled with the idea, from the days of his youth, that he
had a mission--he was to lead his people out of captivity. This oneness
of purpose made itself felt in the House of Commons from his first
entrance. All parliamentary bodies are swayed by a few persons--the
working members are the exception. The horse-racing and cockfighting
contingent in the House of Commons is well represented; the blear eyes,
the poddy pudge, the bulbous beak--all these are in evidence. If one man
out of ten knows what is going on, it is well; and this is equally true
of Washington, for our representatives do not always represent us.

Parnell, although a fledgling in years when he entered the House of
Commons, quickly took the measure of the members, and conceived for them
a fine scorn, which some say he exhibited in italics and upper case.
This was charged up against him to be paid for later at usurious
interest.

Precedent provided that he should not open his Irish mouth during the
entire first session; but he made his presence felt from the first day
he entered the House.

By a curious chance a Coercion Bill was up for discussion, there being
always a few in stock. Some of the tenantry had refused to either pay or
depart, and a move was on foot to use the English soldier