II.
FROM LIVERPOOL TO BELFAST—IRELAND'S CONDITION DISCUSSED—EVICTIONS—A SUNDAY IN BELFAST.
From Liverpool to Belfast, including a cup of tea, cost in all four dollars and fifty cents. It seems ridiculous to a stranger that the cars and cabs always stop at a little distance from the steamers, so as to employ a porter to lift a trunk for a few yards at each end of the short journey by cab.
The kind steward of the "Ontario" came over to the packet to look after his passenger; had promised to see that passenger safely conveyed from one steamer to the other, but, detained at home by sickness in the family, came back to the ship a few minutes too late, and then came over to explain and say good-bye. There could not possibly be a more courteous set of men than the captain and officers of the steamship "Ontario."
On the Belfast packet two ladies, one a very young bride on her way from her home in South Wales to her new home in Belfast, were talking of the danger of going to Ireland or living in it at the present disturbed time. A gentleman in a grey ulster and blue Tam o'Shanter of portentous dimensions broke into the conversation by assuring the handsome young bride that she would be as safe in green Erin as in the arms of her mother. Looking at the young lady it was easy to see that this speech was involuntary Irish blarney, a compliment to her handsome face. "You will meet the greatest kindness here, you will have the heartiest welcome on the face of the earth," he continued.
"But there is a great deal of disturbance, is there not?" asked her companion.
"Oh, the newspapers exaggerate dreadfully—shamefully, to get up a sensation in the interest of their own flimsy sheets. There is some disturbance, but nothing like what people are made believe by the newspaper reports."
Old lady—"Why are Irish people so turbulent?"
Tam O'Shanter—"My dear lady, Ireland contains the best people and the worst in the world, the kindest and the cruelest. They are so emotional, so impulsive, so impressible that their warm hearts are easily swayed by demagogues who are making capital out of influencing them."
Old lady—"Making money by it, do you mean?"