north of England expressly to regiment the Irish
voters, and throw their votes for the Conservative candidates, on the
ground that it was necessary to make the Liberals fully understand their
power. He had fully expected in this way to elect a Conservative member
for the city of York. Great was his chagrin, therefore, when he found
the Liberal candidate returned. Upon investigation he discovered, as he
told me, that the catastrophe was due to the activity of a local Irish
priest, _who was a devoted Fenian_, utterly opposed to the Parliamentary
programme, and who had exerted his authority over the local Irish to
bring them to the polls for the Liberal candidate.

Sir Frederick Milner, Bart., the defeated Conservative candidate for
York, afterwards told me that the local priest referred to here was a
most excellent man, and that so far from playing the part thus ascribed
to him, he took the trouble, as a matter of fair dealing, to see his
parishioners on the morning of the election and warn them against
believing a pamphlet which was sedulously circulated among the Irish
voters on the night before the polling, with a message to the effect
that Sir Frederick despised the Irish, and wanted nothing to do with
them or their votes. Sir Frederick has no doubt, from his knowledge of
what occurred during the canvass, that direct instructions were sent by
Mr. Parnell or his agents to the Irish voters in York to throw their
votes against the Radical candidates. These latter brought down a Home
Rule lecturer to counteract the effect of these instructions, and the
pamphlet above referred to was an eleventh-hour blow in the same
interest. It was successful; the Irish votes, some 500 in number, being
polled early in the morning under the impression produced by it. The
moral of this incident would seem to be, not that there was any real
understanding in 1885 between the Parnellites and the English
Conservatives at all, but simply that the English Radical wirepullers
are more alert and active than either the Irish Parnellites or the
English Conservatives. It is interesting, too, as it illustrates the
deep dread and distrust of the "Fenians" in which the Parnellites
habitually go.

NOTE E.

THE "BOYCOTT" AT MILTOWN-MALBAY.

(Vol. i. p. 209.)

Father White of Miltown-Malbay, taking exception to the statement made
by me, upon the authority of Colonel Turner, that he was "the moving
spirit" of the local "boycott" of policemen an