eactionary quarters to
speak of the actors in this ordeal as "a hustling group of yelling
rowdies." Seldom have terms so censorious been more misplaced. All depends
upon the point of view. Men on a raft in a boiling sea have something to
think of besides deportment and the graces of serenity. As a matter of
fact, even hostile judges then and since agreed that no case was ever
better opened within the walls of Westminster than in the three speeches
made on the first day by Mr. Sexton and Mr. Healy on the one side, and Mr.
Redmond on the other. In gravity, dignity, acute perception, and that good
faith which is the soul of real as distinct from spurious debate, the
parliamentary critic recognises them as all of the first order. So for the
most part things continued. It was not until a protracted game had gone
beyond limits of reason and patience, that words sometimes flamed high.
Experience of national assemblies gives no reason to suppose that a body
of French, German, Spanish, Italian, or even of English, Scotch, Welsh, or
American politicians placed in circumstances of equal excitement, arising
from an incident in itself at once so squalid and so provocative, would
have borne the strain with any more self-control.

Mr. Parnell presided, frigid, severe, and lofty, "as if," said one
present, "it were we who had gone astray, and he were sitting there to
judge us." Six members were absent in America, including Mr. Dillon and
Mr. O'Brien, two of the most important of all after Mr. Parnell himself.
The attitude of this pair was felt to be a decisive element. At first,
under the same impulse as moved the Leinster Hall meeting, they allowed
their sense of past achievement to close their eyes; they took for granted
the impossible, that religious Britain and religious Ireland would blot
what had happened out of their thoughts; and so they stood for Mr.
Parnell's leadership. The grim facts of the case were rapidly borne in
upon them. The defiant manifesto convinced them that the leadership could
not be continued. Travelling from Cincinnati to Chicago, they read it,
made up their minds, and telegraphed to anxious colleagues in London. They
spoke with warmth of Mr. Parnell's services, but protested against his
unreasonable charges of servility to liberal wirepullers; they described
the "endeavours to fasten the responsibility for what had happened upon
Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Morley" as reckless and unjust; and they foresaw in
the pos