o it in private conversation. Up then rose one Irish member after
another, inquiring if he was the person alluded to. To Mr. O'Connell and
Mr. Finn the answer was in the negative, while Mr. Shiel was given
directly to understand that _he_ was one of the members intended, his
lordship declining at the same time to name his authority, but avowing
his belief in the truth of the story, and his willingness to take upon
himself the full responsibility. The result of course was a "scene." Mr.
Shiel, after the manner of fire-eating Irishmen of that day, having
hinted his intention to demand satisfaction elsewhere, Sir Francis
Burdett arose and said that, unless the "honourable members pledged
themselves to preserve the peace, he should instantly move that they be
committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-arms." As neither of the
parties would give such assurance, the motion was put from the chair and
carried. The _Prisoners of War_ portrayed in the sketch are of course
Mr. Shiel and Lord Althorp. After a brief absence from the House, each
having given the required assurance was discharged from custody, and
there the matter ended. The benefits of the Act were almost immediately
made apparent. The association, which called itself, by the way, "The
Irish Volunteers" (the Land League of 1833), was promptly suppressed by
the Lord Lieutenant; and the list of offences during the month of March
which preceded and the month of May which followed the passing of the
Act most conclusively proved its efficiency, for, while in the former
month the records of crime in eleven counties reached a sum total of
472, they had declined in the latter month to 162.[123]

O'CONNELL.

Irish agitators of the nineteenth century are all more or less "tarred
with the same brush," but the conditions under which an Irish agitator
of 1883-4 must be content to figure in that character are, it must be
remembered, widely different from those which influenced the agitators
of 1833. The Irish "Home Rulers" have sown the wind and have reaped the
whirlwind which carries them along in its progress, and we doubt whether
if they wished to stop the hideous Frankenstein they have created, it
would allow them to do so. The Home Rulers, however, are not in any way
to be pitied. Not content with Land League terrorism, they sought to
force their measures upon John Bull himself by an unheard-of system of
parliamentary obstruction, which has inevitably recoiled upon
them