Then came the most wonderful procession I ever saw or ever expect to see. The trades and occupations of the city were in bodies with emblems, flags and banners; the Land Leagues of the entire south of Ireland were there with appropriate banners, and then came a swarming, seething, boiling mass of humanity, without order, without form or coherence. There were men, women and children, on foot, and in all sorts and descriptions of vehicles, and bestriding every animal that permits its back to be crossed. There were women with children in their arms, men carrying their boys to save them from being crushed in the press; there were old men, young men and boys, maids and matrons of all ages, all sorts and conditions of people, in all sorts of garments; men and women shod, men and women barefooted, and all in one inextricable jam.
If there was an idea in the way of a banner that was not in that procession it escaped my notice; and if there was a form or manner of decoration that was not in the seemingly endless mass of humanity that I did not notice, it was because there was so much of it that one pair of eyes could not take it all in.
The procession was fully ten miles long, and there were in it not less than one hundred thousand people. I know that mass meetings are always exaggerated, but there were actually that number in that monster procession on that Sunday.
A very great deal is said about the intemperance of the Irish people. In all this vast throng, this hive of human beings, there were but three drunken men. Also, much is said about their tendency to brawls. There was not a single fight. The procession was wild in enthusiasm, wild in cheering and handkerchief-shaking, but there was not a blackened eye nor a broken head. I never saw one-fourth the number of Americans together that did not eventuate in a score or two of fights. Ireland certainly behaved herself remarkably well on that occasion.
“COME DOWN.”
There was one curious scene. A young man in Cork in the early days of the Land League had been suspected of playing into the hands of the government, for gain. Since the movement became overwhelmingly popular, he shifted his course and tried to curry favor with the Leaguers, but without success. They did not trust him. A carriage was set apart for the use of the prominent Americans then in the city, and he, by sheer impudence, forced himself upon them. He managed to get himself seated upon the box of the carriage, making himself exceedingly conspicuous.
It was a kind of conspicuosity which the young Irishmen did not like. They remembered his betrayal of the cause a few months before, and they believed his present zeal was for effect and not honest. They would not have him foist himself upon their American friends. There was no violence, no obstreperousness. Ten of them, five upon each side, formed beside the carriage, and they kept step as soldiers do, only instead of the regular “Left!” “Left!” the words were “Come down!” “Come down!” He tried to reason with them; he said all sorts of pretty things to them; he assured them of his entire and utter devotion to the cause; but to every word he uttered there came the one response, “Come down!” “Come down!” He came. He might have resisted force, but the moral suasion in the simple words “Come down!” was too much for him. He descended from the carriage and slunk away in the crowd, and we saw no more of him. Immediately the young men fell into rank, and the procession swept on. It was their way of punishing one who was seeking for himself instead of for the mass.
And that enormous mass of people paraded the streets all day, and in the evening, in the fields outside the city, they waited patiently and listened to speeches from the leaders of the people, every sentence bringing a quick response.
As grand as was the demonstration, it was no mere man worship that was at the bottom of it. It was not so much in honor of their leader; it was a protest of a great people against a system which has already driven out from the country two-thirds of the entire population, and which would drive out the remainder were there means enough left to take them. It was the wail of a starving people, a naked people, a robbed, outraged and oppressed people. It was a protest against bayonet rule, a protest against carbines and ball cartridges, an appeal for the right to live upon the ground upon which they