e time he wrote
the letter.

I have spoken of the necessity for our organisation doing registration
work at least as effectually as the Liberals and Tories do. It is not
always men of the highest intellectual attainments who make the best
registration agents. This fact came home to me very forcibly when
reading a biography of Thomas Davis. It was stated that in the Revision
Court he was not able to hold his own against the Tory agent. It is just
what I would have imagined, considering the sensitive nature of Davis.
A man with a face of brass, who _might_ be an able man, but who, on the
other hand, might be some low ignorant fellow, might easily do better
than Thomas Davis with his fine intellect and varied learning.

At the same time, I have known men of the highest attainments who have
made excellent agents, such a man as John Renwick Seager, who has for
many years been connected with the London Liberal organisation. Just
such another we have in our own ranks in Daniel Crilly who, before he
became a journalist or entered Parliament, was a very successful agent
in the Liverpool Courts.

One of the most efficient and conscientious of registration and
electioneering agents I ever met was John Mogan, of Liverpool. Besides
the annual registration work he was engaged on our side in nearly every
election of importance in Liverpool for over 30 years. He was so
engrossed in his work that, during an election he would, if required,
sit up several nights in succession to have his work properly done;
indeed, I was often tempted to think that John never considered any
election complete without at least _one_ "all night sitting."

We believed in fighting the enemy with his own weapons. On election days
in Liverpool there were shipowners who made it a practice of getting
their vessels coaled in the river. As, unlike the Liffey at Dublin or
the Thames at London, the Mersey at Liverpool is over a mile wide, and
as most of the coal heavers were Irishmen, this move of the shipowners
was to keep our men from voting. We were successful, to some extent, in
counteracting this, for owing to the patriotism of a sterling Irishman,
John Prendiville, the steam tugs which he owned were often used, on the
day of an election, to take our men ashore.

Sometimes the Revision Courts gave us the opportunity of teaching a
little Irish history. In South Wales most of our people hail from
Munster. In one of the Courts there was the case of Owen O'Donov