t against all
comers, as Mr. T.P. O'Connor has been, ever since the Division became a
separate constituency.

To return to the St. Patrick's Day processions. I used to look forward
to them with delight in my childhood, and, even now, cannot help
lingering lovingly on their memory. They were splendid displays, which I
can remember much better than many things which occurred, so to speak,
but yesterday.

"Our street," which was close to Russell Street, Rodney Street, and
other thoroughfares through which the procession passed, was by no means
what you would call an Irish street. Indeed, the most influential man in
it was a retired sea captain named Jamieson, who, if not an Orangeman
"all out," was certainly at one time an Orange sympathiser. He and my
mother often had political discussions, which usually ended in fierce
quarrels, and when he would swear he would have us "run out of the
street," she used to threaten to bring up the men from the docks and
leave not a stone upon a stone of his house. Whether it was through his
being impressed by her terrible earnestness as a member of the Church
militant, or whatever else was the reason, Jamieson in the end became a
Catholic, and died a most edifying death.

Before his conversion, however, as well as after--Jamieson to the
contrary notwithstanding--"our street" always took a lively and
neighbourly interest in the St. Patrick's procession, and used to turn
out to a man, to a baby it would, perhaps, be more correct to say, for
was not one of the chief sights of the procession their decent
neighbour, Timothy, or, as he was more generally called, "Thade"
Crowley, the pork butcher, at the corner? There were splendid pictures
and devices on the banners--I can see them all most vividly now--St.
Patrick, Brian Bora, Sarsfield, O'Connell, the Irish Wolf Dog, with the
motto "Gentle when stroked, fierce when provoked," and harps and
shamrocks _galore_, but Thade Crowley was in all our eyes the finest
figure in the procession.

Among his greatest admirers were a Jewish family named Hyman, who lived
next door to him. Though the Jews are supposed to hold what was
Crowley's stock-in-trade in abomination, the two old ladies--Mrs.
Crowley, who used to say she was of "Cork's own town and God's own
people," and Mrs. Hyman, who came from Cork, too, though, needless to
say, without a drop of Irish blood in her veins--were great cronies.

As a consequence, the Hymans were among the most eag