THE STORY OF A MINISTER, HIS SECRETARY, AND A PAIR OF SATIN SHOES—MR. R——’S THEORIES—LONDON—ENGLISH SOLDIERS—THE CHANNEL TUNNEL—HYDE PARK—HOLYHEAD—DUBLIN—THE JAUNTING CARS—United Ireland AND MR. O’BRIEN—The Freeman’s Journal AND MR. DWYER GRAY.
July 1st, 1886.—At twenty past eight this morning I left the Gare du Nord and arrived at Charing Cross at half-past five. When we reached Dover at three o’clock the English Custom House officers had closely examined all the luggage carried in the hand. Others now waited for us in London, who searched our trunks quite as minutely. They made me unscrew the little boxes in my dressing-bag, apparently to ascertain that they did not contain dynamite; for at the present time dynamite causes great preoccupation, not only to the English police, but also to a great many of Queen Victoria’s faithful subjects. I can prove this by a story which is only a few months old, and which was related to me a day or two ago.
It happened at the time when O’Donovan Rossa, at New York, daily announced in his newspaper that the week would not close before all the public buildings in London were destroyed by the exertions of pupils who had just left the special school which he had founded at Brooklyn for the study of the use of dynamite; and since these threats have been corroborated by the explosions at the Tower of London and at the War Office, public excitement had reached its highest point. One morning when a very high official reached his office he saw a small, strangely-shaped parcel, which Had been placed on his writing-table.
“What is that?” demanded the official, addressing his secretary.
“I do not know,” replied the other; “it was there when I came in, and no one can tell me who put it there.”
“Oh, oh!” said the official. “I am obliged to go out for a few minutes; be kind enough to open it and see what it is,” and the great man precipitately left the room.
The secretary advanced to open it, but changed his mind.
“Mr. Jones,” said he to one of the chief clerks who was reading in the next room, “the chief has sent me to the city. Will you kindly open the small parcel you will find on the writing-table?” and he ran down stairs.
Half an hour later when the chief returned he found the man who cleans the office examining with an astonished face a pair of satin shoes that the minister’s wife, who was then in the country, had sent to her lord and master in order that they might be returned to the shoemaker.
However, for the moment dynamite seems to have become a matter of secondary interest. Every one is thinking of the elections and of the events passing in Ulster.