the shots, while
the heroic riflemen who had fired 14 bullets, luckily without effect,
showed that if too cowardly to fight, they were not too lazy to run."
This occurrence, of which I had the description from authority, would
have excited some attention in England, but here it is lightly passed
over as nothing exceptional. "We are holding back our men. The other
party are egging us on to outbreak, in the hope that our cause will be
discredited, and that Lord Salisbury's visit in May might be
hindered." There is a mutual repugnance between the two peoples, but
the character of the repulsion is different. The Roman Catholics
manifest an unmistakable hatred--the term is no whit too strong--a
hatred of the social and intellectual superiority of their
fellow-countrymen, who in turn look upon the Catholics (as a whole)
with mistrust, mingled with contempt. As well ask Brother Jonathan to
submit to the rule of the negro, as well ask the London trader to put
his interests in the hands of a Seven Dials' syndicate, as well ask
Mr. Gladstone and his followers to listen to reason or to talk common
sense, as to expect the powerful and influential Protestants of
Belfast and Ulster generally to entrust their future to a Legislature
elected by the most illiterate electorate in the three kingdoms, and
under the thumb of the priests--who wield a despotic power which
people in England cannot be made to understand. A short time ago the
Dublin Freemasons held a bazaar in aid of a charity whose object was
the complete care of orphan children. The Catholic Archbishop
immediately fulminated a decree that whosoever patronised the show
would incur the terrors of the church, which means that they would
perish everlastingly. Some poor folks, servant girls and porters and
the like, who were sent by their mistresses or called by their honest
avocations, dared to enter the accursed precincts, and emerging alive,
rushed to confession, that the leprosy of Masonic charity might be
washed from their souls by absolution.

Absolution was refused. The wretched outcasts were referred to the
Bishop, who in this dire emergency had sole power to unlock the gates
of heaven. Do English people know what an Irish Catholic feels when
refused absolution? I trow not, and that therefore they cannot justly
estimate the power of the priests. Another illustration. A friend of
mine made some purchases and sent a man for them, one of five hundred
Catholics in his employ.