But human strength has its limits, and I saw with pleasure that they were nearly exhausted. The second volley of hurrahs is not so hearty as the first. At last their throats could only utter inarticulate sounds; in spite of the efforts betrayed by their distorted features aphony was rapidly approaching.
The orators grouped near to me on the platform evidently awaited this result. One of them rose and began to speak. He first alluded to the meddling of the Court with the elections. He had scarcely launched into his subject before a young man suddenly rose at the back of the hall. “Long live the Queen! Down with the rebels!” he cried in a clear voice. Two or three other voices responded. It was the students who had just entered, but their arrangements were badly planned. Their adversaries had taken every precaution, and very few students had succeeded in slipping into the room.
The tempest was unchained, a forest of cudgels waved overhead. The students made an heroic defence, but in less than a minute they were overpowered, picked up and thrust out amidst growls resembling those of wild beasts.
However, the affair was not yet over. In the streets their friends attempted a diversion. The music which had recommenced ended in a despairing scream. A heavy blow had broken one musician’s instrument in his face and the others took to flight. Some curious fights took place under my window; the combatants, so far as I could judge, seemed to display very serious and profound knowledge of the principles of the noble art of boxing, for in the twinkling of an eye I saw two or three noses broken. “A very illigant foight! Is it not, sorr?” said one of my neighbours, addressing me; he evidently considered it would be a personal favour if I declared myself anti-nationalist so that he might have the opportunity of commencing an equally “illigant foight” with me. I took care not to give him this satisfaction; on the contrary, I declared that I thought the fight most “illigant.” I begin to understand Irish very well, and even to speak it a little; it suffices to change most of the e’s into i’s and all the i’s into oi’s—for instance one must never say Ireland but “Oirrlande.” With these precautions progress is very rapid.
The students are decidedly not in force. In less than five minutes the incident is over, every one returns to his place, and the orators peacefully continue their speeches.
Most of them say very little; they are only the supernumeraries, the important topics are reserved for a little later on. The appearance of the hall is the interesting and instructive spectacle. The meeting is evidently composed of men belonging to the lower middle class; they are shopkeepers or clerks. There are a few torn jackets, but very few; in such an assembly one ought to find comparative moderation, but on the contrary, all these men seem really and unquestionably exasperated. When, just now, the students shouted “Long live the Queen,” and when since that an orator has pronounced her name, hisses and groans were heard on all sides. I consider this is one of the most serious aspects of the situation. Mr. Gladstone, once a constitutional minister, has assumed a revolutionary attitude; he has stripped the throne of its “divinity,” the name of the Queen is now treated with more contempt than the names of her ministers. The speakers, to do them justice, make no effort to excite this feeling; they constantly refer to Home Rule, but when they allude to the idea of absolute separation, or to a republic, they do so in terms which indicate that they will not even honour the question by discussing it. Do orders, resulting from political calculation, produce this state of things, or does it proceed from real conviction? I cannot tell, I can only state the fact; but I must also own that their contemptuous words were not echoed by the crowd. At last the candidate rose. Sir Thomas Esmonde is quite a young man, it appears that he is twenty-three, but he does not look more than eighteen or twenty. It is said that his fortune is very much reduced, and his family, which is far from adopting the same political views, and which now refuses to meet him, explains that it is with the hope of recovering his position that he has thrown himself into the arms of the League with so much enthusiasm.
This is another sign of the times. Formerly in England political opinions had no influence over social relations. It is said that a few years ago when Mr. Labouchere, widely known as the editor of Truth, was presented to the Prince of Wales, he, with an amiable smile said, “No doubt your Royal Highness is aware that I am a red republican.” This is quite possible in a country where the theories of social distinction not only have never been practised, but even seem never to have any chance of being applied. In an English drawing-room one may come into pleasant intercourse with a gentleman who explains that the landowners should be deprived of their property and that their throats should be cut on the altar of the country; because in England this has never happened, and until lately no one saw that there was any possibility of it happening. In France for a long time these encounters have been most disagreeable, and in Ireland I am led to believe that the people begin to avoid them. I am told that Sir Thomas Esmonde is “cut” by the society that he frequented before he entered political life.
However, they have not yet reached the odious personalities which too often dishonour our election struggles; and, I notice with pleasure, that the candidate’s first phrases are devoted to saying in a few words that he considers his opponent, Mr. Todhunter Pym, a perfectly honest man, and that he delights in recalling the services rendered by his father. I always acted in this way in our election meetings, and I can recollect the stupefied expressions of our adversaries’ partisans and the alarmed faces of our own when they heard me break through old traditions in such a fashion.
Otherwise I am bound to say that the shadow of the illustrious Grattan does not seem to inspire his descendant. If the truth must be owned, the honourable candidate stutters a little and consults some papers, which contain his improvisation, a little unreasonably. This is perhaps excusable because his speech bristles with figures. Beyond this it contained nothing very new.
Ireland has always been oppressed. All its industries have been successively sacrificed to the Machiavellian calculations of the English; first the silk manufactures, then the cotton have disappeared. Only agriculture remains. Now agriculture itself is threatened; it is dying of anæmia. Every year it pays nearly seventeen million pounds in rent, of which six millions are spent abroad by landowners who never visit Ireland. The country is therefore impoverished every year to the extent of six million pounds. How can it resist such a drainage!