Extracted from the Diary of Toby, M.P.
House of Commons, Monday, July 3.—The fat in the fire again. Who put it there? "I," said Joey C., "with my ready ladle; I swooped it in." So he did, lighting up with sudden flame embers that seemed quite dead. At end of speech on Wolmer's Amendment, seeing John Dillon sitting opposite, asked him what about few remarks made at Castlerea, in which he had threatened, when Irishmen came to their own on College Green, they would have police, sheriffs, and bailiffs, under their control, and would "remember" their enemies? Dillon, amid scene of tumultuous excitement, admitted that phrase not in itself defensible, but pleaded that words had been spoken amid great provocation. The massacre at Mitchelstown had taken place just before; its memories were hot within him, and, out of the indignation of his heart, his tongue had spoken.
As Dillon urged this plea, T. W. Russell made a hurried remark in Joseph's ear. J. smiled grimly; the Lord had delivered the enemy into his hand. Some men would have maimed their chance, if not spoiled the game, by jumping up with hot interruption, and hurriedly exposed the blunder upon which Dillon had stumbled. Joseph never loses his head. He lay low, sayin' nuffin', but regarding the unconscious victim opposite with dangerously smiling face. When Dillon sat down, the crowded House plainly moved by his effective speech, Joseph literally leaped to his feet, and flung across the floor the most complete and dramatic blow ever dealt at a man in House of Commons. It was Mitchelstown, was it, that had rankled in Dillon's breast when he uttered the phrase he now regretted? Would the House believe that the massacre at Mitchelstown took place on September 9, 1887, and this speech at Castlerea was made on December 5, 1886?
"Remember Mitchelstown!" John Dillon had remembered it nine months and four days before it had taken place. Several moments the Unionists cheered, Joseph standing with accusatory finger pointed at John Dillon, who sat silent with folded arms, the habitual pallor of his face changed to a ghastlier white.
