Paddy at Home ("Chez Paddy")

by baron de E. Mandat-Grancey

Boycotting, therefore, entails absolute discipline, and since there can be no discipline without authority, it ends in intimidation. Now, from intimidation to murder there is only one step. The facts prove it. Mr. Parnell often repeats that the only day that he despaired of the future, and was on the point of renouncing the struggle, was when he received the news of the murders at Phœnix Park. This is very possible; but still, Mr. Parnell cannot deny that his system could not work two days if murders had not been committed. He blames the assassins, but profits by their deeds.

We must, however, acknowledge that the question can be looked at from another side. It is certain that the Irish people are in a state of war or of rebellion, whichever you like, against England. This is incontestable. The war is carried on by extraordinary means, but still it is war. Mr. Parnell is therefore the chief of a belligerent army. He has regular troops: namely, the official agents of the Land League; and then he has irregular troops, composed of men who all aim at the same thing, but who will not submit to any discipline, and who advance towards their end by whichever road they fancy will lead them the most directly. In Italy, the Turcos committed some atrocities; they willingly collected the ears of the Croates left dead or merely wounded on the field of battle. These atrocities served to found the legend which rendered them so formidable, and this legend in some degree assisted to win the battle of Magenta. Marshal MacMahon was absolutely incapable of cutting off an enemy’s ears whether he were dead or wounded. He never gave any Turco the order to commit these abominations; he would certainly have punished any man who did it in his presence; but who can tell the influence these ears had upon the battle of Magenta where the general found a field-marshal’s baton and a coronet?

But it is certain that side by side with the Land League there are several secret societies existing, which have usually their head-quarters in America. They are or were under the direction of the notorious O’Donovan Rossa, and it is almost proved that these societies instigate many of the crimes which are committed. But, even whilst admitting, what I believe to be true, that the Land League never directly recommends attempts at manslaughter or attacks on the person, it can be reproached because it has hitherto expressed so very little censure of such crimes after they have occurred. With the enormous and varied resources at its disposal, it would be very easy for the League to bring the guilty to justice, and by so doing it would completely silence its accusers; but this it has never yet attempted.

The office of the Land League is at 43, Upper O’Connell Street. Here I must again make an observation: this street, one of the most important in Dublin, is in reality Sackville Street. One day, on its self-created authority, I do not know for what reason, unless it was simply to assert its omnipotence, the League decided that it should bear the name of the great Irish agitator. Since that event there is not a car driver who does not pretend that he does not understand where you mean when you ask for Sackville Street. I have been told this quite seriously, but I have not been able to verify it as a fact; so that I only mention it as a statement made to me. When I enter the office I seem to be in a ministerial department. I was shown into a room where five or six people were writing; one of them took my card, and asking me to wait for his return, carried it to Mr. Harrington, the general secretary. Busy men passed to and fro, with papers they had brought for signature; an elderly white-haired man danced attendance with me. We began to talk. He was an Australian doctor, who had brought funds from a committee at Melbourne; I was at once filled with respect for an establishment, where they even kept a man waiting who brought them money.

At last I was informed that Mr. Harrington could see me. I found him in a large lofty hall ornamented with allegorical pictures; three or four secretaries were seated round a table covered with a green cloth, opening letters and coming forward every moment to ask for instructions or to bring piles of telegrams, which arrive from all quarters. I own that all this made me feel thunderstruck. Here is an Association that openly conspires against the established Government, and that everywhere declaims against its odious tyranny. And yet the offices occupy a whole house within two steps of the Viceroy’s palace; it has a badge over the door so that no one could mistake it, and a policeman walks up and down the pavement to keep the carriages in their ranks. What a difference between this imposing establishment and the dark cave where all classical conspiracies are formed! And yet some people deny that we are progressing! Unfortunately it appears to me that this fact alone suffices for the undeniable condemnation of the English Government. It asserts that these people are rebels and assassins. How then can it allow itself to be defied by them in this way? The first duty of every government is to carry out the law and to protect peaceful citizens. When it does neither of these things it must be nearly at its end, and it is even right to wish that its end may come as soon as possible, in order to make room for another administration which will better realise its duties.

Mr. Harrington was born at Bantry, in the south of Ireland; four years ago he superintended a local publication named the Kerry Sentinel, and which naturally waged perpetual war against the English Government. From time to time the Administration has spasms of severity which are disastrous, because just as this severity is likely to become efficacious it is abandoned for a return to gentler measures.

One day it thought it desirable to prosecute Mr. Harrington, who had not said one word more nor less than two or three thousand others had said. He was sentenced to two months imprisonment and confined in Mullingar gaol. Whilst working out his punishment he had an altercation with the governor and was condemned to six days in the cells. This caused some excitement. At the same time the member for Mullingar was obliged to resign his seat, though I do not know for what reason, and Mr. Harrington was thereupon elected in his place.

I have had something to do with French conspirators, though as little as possible, but still I have had some intercourse with them. They are nearly all, physically as well as morally, rough and unwashed, clinging to their principles as though they were stilts; in fact, insufferable. There are a few amiable sceptics who shave and wash themselves sometimes, but they do it with such visible affectation, that after all when one meets them one begins to regret they are not like the others.

The conspirators in this country appear to me a hundred degrees above ours. They never shave, but that I believe is a professional necessity. I have read in many classic works that the conspirators of former ages had the habit of forging swords out of their chains. Since in the present century chains are no longer used, they apparently forge them out of the steel of their razors. You therefore never see a stage conspirator without a formidable beard. All the Land Leaguers that I have yet seen wear them; but their beards are well kept, and their owners are as amiable and gracious as possible.