lower and slower, and threatened to expire of inanition. Divil a
mother's son could be got to shpake a single wurud. Some malevolent
influence overhung the masses. His Rivirince sent down a messenger to
me with the request that I would say a few wuruds. Declined, with
thanks, as being no speaker. Uncertainty as to my colour and object
still prevailed; and silence, not loud, but deep, succeeded this
artful feeler. Father O'Murtagh (or words to that effect) to the
rescue! The Rivirind Gintleman arose and delivered a bitter attack on
Parnell, whom he characterised as mean, base, untruthful, treacherous,
and contemptible. The foinest pisintry in the wuruld could not be
soiled by contact with anybody like Parnell, and therefore the
Catholic bishops had been compelled to give him up, and to say, Get
thee behind me, Satanas. The dear Father did not tell the meeting why
the bishops waited sixteen days after the verdict of the Court, and
until Mr. Gladstone had delivered judgment, before deciding to cut
Parnell adrift. Father O'Murtagh (I think that was the name) made some
allusion to the present crisis of public affairs--(he called it
cresses)--and assured his masses that the Tories were about to be for
ever plucked from the pedestal on which they had long been planted by
ascendency and greed! This was not so racy as the mixed metaphor of a
Galway paper, which assures its readers that "the Unionist party will
soon be compelled to disgorge the favouritism which for so long has
been centred in their hands;" but it might pass. His Rivirince made
some feeble jokes, and the audience tried to laugh, but failed. "They
say that whin we luck at ourselves in the lucking lass, we see nothin'
but Whigs," said the funny Father, and the audience sniggered. This
was his masterpiece. He finished with "It's wondherful what a spache
ye can make whin ye have nothin' to say;" and the masses sniggered
again. Ten minutes more of silence broken only by whispered
confabulations of the secretary and chairman, and I grew tired of
obstructing the march to Freedom. I left the chair, the only one at my
end of the room, with considerable regret. Part of the back, one
upright, was still remaining, and although the thing had evidently
been used in argument at some previous meeting, it hung together, and
good work might still have been done with the legs. A gentleman with a
complexion like a blast furnace, and a facial expression which looked
like a wholesale i