r a time the Honorary General Secretary of the Home Rule
Confederation. He was always a cheery and, at the same time, an
eminently practical man. He took a leading part in our local elections
in Liverpool from the time we began to fight them on Home Rule
principles--when the necessity arose, as I have elsewhere explained, to
have public men who were not afraid to identify themselves with the
national cause.

Hugh Heinrick, our editor, was a brilliant writer, who had, for several
years, been a strenuous worker in the Home Rule cause. He was a frequent
contributor of poetry to the "Nation" and other national journals,
generally over the signature of "Hugh Mac Erin." He was born in the
County Wexford in 1831. Before taking up the editorship of the "United
Irishman" he was for many years resident in Birmingham, where he was a
schoolmaster. He died in 1887.

Daniel Crilly, one of the most active and eloquent advocates of the
Irish cause in Liverpool, succeeded him--this being his maiden effort in
journalism. He was afterwards on the staff of the "Nation," and also did
good service while a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party.

Among other contributors to the "United Irishman" were Isaac Butt, Dr.
Commins, Frank Hugh O'Donnell, Michael Clarke, Captain Kirwan, and Frank
Byrne. Our poetry was a strong point with us--Dr. Commins, Frank Fox,
John Hand, Patrick Clarke, Heber MacMahon, and Miss Bessie Murphy being
among the contributors.

When the "United Irishman" was started, the offices of the Home Rule
Confederation, which had previously been in Manchester, were for
convenience removed to my place of business. As the executive meetings
and the meetings of the newspaper directors were held there, I
frequently had the pleasure of meeting under my own roof Irishmen who
either then were or afterwards became prominent members of the Irish
Parliamentary Party, including Isaac Butt, Charles Stewart Parnell, and
Joseph Biggar.

Mr. Biggar and I were always great friends. He had the reputation of
being close-fisted and penurious; but that this was not so I knew from
many circumstances, though it is quite true he would not allow himself
to be defrauded of a penny.

He became a Catholic in his later days. Though such of us as were of
the household of the faith welcomed him into the fold, his conversion
did not increase his value in our eyes--indeed, from a political point
of view, he was of more service to the cause as an Irish