wn in ultra-Nationalist
circles as the 'Manchester martyrs.' For some years after this trio was
hanged in Salford jail, it appears that the infant mind was sadly mixed
in its attempt to separate knowledge in the concrete from the more or
less abstract information contained in the Catechism; and many a bishop
was shocked, when asking in the confirmation service, "Who are the
martyrs?" to be told, "Allan, Larkin, and O'Brien, me lord!"

Francesca says she longs to smuggle into Mr. Jordan's library a picture
of Tom Steele, one of Daniel O'Connell's henchmen, to whom he gave the
title of Head Pacificator of Ireland. Many amusing stories are told
of this official, of his gaudy uniform, his strut and swagger, and his
pompous language. At a political meeting on one occasion, he attacked,
it seems, one Peter Purcell, a Dublin tradesman who had fallen out with
the Liberator on some minor question. "Say no more on the subject, Tom,"
cried O'Connell, who was in the chair, "I forgive Peter from the bottom
of my heart."

"You may forgive him, liberator and saviour of my country," rejoined
Steele, in a characteristic burst of his amazingly fervent rhetoric.
"Yes, you, in the discharge of your ethereal functions as the moral
regenerator of Ireland, may forgive him; but, revered leader, I also
have functions of my own to perform; and I tell you that, as Head
Pacificator of Ireland, I can never forgive the diabolical villain that
dared to dispute your august will."

The doughty Steele, who appears to have been but poorly fitted by nature
for his office, was considered at the time to be half a madman, but as
Sir James O'Connell, Daniel's candid brother, said, "And who the divil
else would take such a job?" At any rate, when we gaze at Mr. Jordan's
gallery, imagining the scene that would ensue were the breath of life
breathed into the patriots' quivering nostrils, we feel sure that the
Head Pacificator would be kept busy.

Dear old white-haired Mr. Jordan, known in select circles as 'Grievance
Jordan,' sitting in his library surrounded by his denunciators,
conspirators, and martyrs, with incendiary documents piled mountains
high on his desk--what a pathetic anachronism he is after all!

The shillelagh is hung on the wall now, for the most part, and faction
fighting is at an end; but in the very last moments of it there were
still 'ructions' between the Fitzgeralds and the Moriartys, and the
age-old reason of the quarrel was, accordin