THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY From the collection of James Collins, Drumcoridra, Ireland. Purchased, 1918. , '"Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice!^ THE CLAN-NA-GAEL MURDER OF DR. CRONIN Being a Complete and Authentic Narrative of the Rise and Development of the Irish Revolutionary Movement, and an Impartial Account of the Crime in the Carlson Cottage. From Original Information; from Matter Furnished Privately by Members of the Clan-na-Gael, ami from Unpublished Material in the Hands of the Leading Detectives and Attorneys in the Case. HY JOHN 'I. McKXNIS. V.'ITjI NOIEROrs ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS I'.V \VM. OTTMAK, II. R. 1IEATON. AND ('HAS. FOERSTF.R. COPYRIGHTED 1889. V3 ^ U PREFACE. In presenting a history of the crime of May 4th, last, which startled the civilized world, and which is still the topic upon every tongue, the publishers feel that their work must be prefaced by a word of explanation. The book has been prepared so that no wrong shall be done the men who are on trial for their lives, and no improper accusation brought against the Irish revolutionary organizations. There is a justice also due the public by honest writers, and it will be found that that too has been fully satisfied in these pages. The truth has been told without fear or favor, and the reader will here have one of the most interesting chapters in Irish secret his- tory, told to its most minute details, and told frankly and impar- tially. "Nothing extenuate, nor set down aught in malice," has been made the one touchstone by which every part of this book has been tried. We believe that the public will agree with us that it stands the test. No man can understand the condition of Irish feeling, or the status of Irish parties, who does not get his finger upon the pulse of the revolutionary movement. For that reason it has been felt that no history of the Cronin case could be complete -could be even intelligible, on account of the charges which have been made which did not show the origin of Irish bitterness against the English Government, and the birth and growth of the revolt against alien tyranny. Of making books there is no end. Already there are on the market several different publications, and each eagerly claiming public attention on the ground that it is the story of the crime U30 ! iv PREFACE. It is not worth while to discuss this matter here, but we believe it is proper for us to say that no history of this romantic case is complete which does not show the reason why the killing of Dr. Cronin has been imputed to the Clan-na-Gael, as well as the fact of the murder itself. And more than this. It lies within the power of any man to take the Chicago papers, a paste-pot and a pair of shears, and produce the "only and original Cronin case;" but we have be- lieved that the dry details of the court, the stereotyped questions and answers of witness and lawyer, the raw conclusions of an often prejudiced as well as an always hurried reporter, were not what the great body of the people would want could they get something better. Not a page of the book that follows has been sent to the printer without thought and care. Do you want to know the truth about the Cronin case? the whole truth? and nothing but the truth ? We believe you will find it here. THE PUBLISHERS. TABLE OF CONTENTS. BOOK I. WAR. CHAPTER I. Celt and Saxon The irrepressible conflict The seven hundred years' war "To Hell or Connaught" Memories of Crom- well No Surrender The Orange faction Limerick and its sequel Flight of the wild geese A legacy of the Stuarts The penal laws The Shan Van Vocht From Wolfe Tone to Robert Emmet "I thank God I have a country to sell" O'Connell and emancipation The great betrayal Fifty years' evictions Starving out a whole people A fight for life The choice of weapons 17 CHAPTER II. The open movement Home Rule and its leaders Isaac Butt Charles Stewart Parnell Divided England Davitt's posi- tion Dillon, O'Brien, and the plan of campaign A hero of the jail Experiences on the plank bed How the police treat free men The "garrison" in extremities Retribu- tion and the "Removables" The landlord's last chance Gladstone and his work Parnell's prophecy 30 CHAPTER III. Revolution under difficulties Fenianism and the Pope The crusade against secret societies Hidden conspiracies in former times The old man of the mountain The Assas- sins or Hasheeshans Knights Templars and their* fate The Chouan The Red Internationale Nihilism, Socialism and Anarchy Penalties for treason in Ireland and Italy Curious secret oaths Tie Hell-fire Club, and the Monks of the Screw Blood-curdling rituals 39 (v) ri CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. Secret societies in Ireland Veiled revolution The "Croppies' Holes" How Fenianism began McManus' funeral A. menacing demonstration Enrolling the soldiers O'Dono- van Rossa and the conspiracy Sergt. Brett's death Allen, Larkin and O'Brien hanged "God Save Ireland!" Parnell takes up the work Le Caron on the Clan-na-Gael The dynamite war Twenty-nine prisoners in English jails Record of the explosions Mackay Lomasney and his fate Sketches of the convicts 45 CHAPTER Y. Scotland Yard and the Clan-na-Gael A Roland for an Oliver How detectives detect Information at market rates Capturing a police cipher Rival cryptologists Bogus out- rages Spies in America Their probable number and pay Humbugging an ambassador Col. Majendie and his men A visit to the Secret Service The "Inner Circle" at Scot- land Yard The phantom of dynamite Trailing a suspect The jubilee illumination 66 CHAPTER VI. How the Clan-na-Gael began The oath and the ritual An organization modeled on the Catholic Church "Who comes here?" Strength of the order Its finances The class of members Is there an "inner circle"? The I. R. B. in France Hunting for the Paris headquarters The reor- ganization The Triangle and the leaders Work with the diplomatists "Where England has an enemy we have a friend" Negotiations with Russia Help for the Mahdi "Our allies in South Africa" Dhuleep Singh and the In dian revolt 78 CHAPTER VII. "Parnellisin and Crime" The London Times' attack Its purpose and its scope The Irish question in English politics The forged letters The charges against Parnell The Parnell commission Importance of the result Egan and the forgeries Running down the criminal Priming a bomb- CONTENTS. vii shell The Times' case Help from the Government Par- nell's "r" Pigott broken down His flight and suicide. .96 CHAPTER VIII. English detectives in America Treason in the Fenian ranks P. W. Dunne and P. J. Meehan condemned to death The "Lost Documents" How a torn pair of drawers put life and liberty in danger Carey and the Invincibles Tracking a traitor A revolutionary execution "Major Le Caron" Betrayal on a cash basis Parnellism and crime Le Caron's futile disclosures His personality Alexander Sullivan his sponsor Le Caron's life in Chicago 104 CHAPTER IX. American excitement Charges and counter charges What Le Caron testified A futile treason The Devoy-Egan con- troversy Were the names given? McCahey's appeal to Egan Cronin and Sullivan A bitter fight The Buffalo convention Reading the report Exciting scene in Camp 20 Beggs' letters to Spelman Was there a trial commit- tee ? And was there a trial ? Street gossip and Clan secrets. . .117 BOOK II. THE BLOW IN THE DARK. CHAPTER I. P. H. Cronin in Chicago and St. Louis His birth and family Learning to sing Was he a militiaman ? Two sides to a vexed question He studies medicine Personal traits Cronin and the cat He joins the Clan-na-Gael Cronin and the Foresters His friendship for John Devoy He attacks the Triangle 123 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTEB II. Alexander Sullivan In Detroit and Chicago His character and his friends The Han ford case His work for Ireland How Sullivan is regarded in the Old Country Davitt and Par- nell Sullivan and Egan Elaine's friendship The charges at Toronto The newspaper attack Fair and unfair criti- cism Paying off old scores Cronin's circular as a text An unprejudiced view 140 CHAPTEB III. More tales of Camp 20 Beggs' speech What Coughlin said O'Connor's firebrand A stormy meeting Was a life at stake ? Why feeling ran high Charges of treason Irish opinion Reasons pro and con Cronin's friends to the res- cue Clearing the memory of the dead The peculiar features of the debate But one side yet heard Guesses at the pri- vate defense 150 CHAPTEB IV. O'Sullivan and his cards The contract with the Doctor A lib- eral arrangement The flat on Clark Street Waiting for a sick sister Buying the big trunk Getting an expressman Money no object The tenants of the Carlson cottage Furnishing a death trap How the conspirators must have lived Camping out in a bare room Waiting for the vic- tim Troubled dreams 165 CHAPTEB V. A fine night for a long ride The white horse and the buggy O'Sullivan's card A deferred meeting " Here is the key " Where is the Doctor ? Looking for news Mrs. Conklin's anxiety Alarming his friends The police in- formed Losing valuable time The bloody trunk found Suspicion, but no proofs Conflicting theories Anxiety and slander 275 CONTENTS. ix BOOK III. MURDER WILL, OUT.' CHAPTER I. Dinan aud his suspicions The secret nearly told Miss Murphy's story Cronin seen in a cable car The conductor and the lint Cronin in Toronto Long's queer dispatches Cronin's friends declare them fakes Excitement in both factions Woodruff comes on the scene Waiting for more develop- ments Scattering of the conspirators Cronin's anxiety Capt. Schaack's work 185 CHAPTER II. The catch-basin on Evanston Avenue Complaints of the neigh- bors An evil smell Looking for the cause A ghastly find Can it be Cronin ? How the body looked The Agnus Dei Marks of identification The scene at the Morgue " Yes, it is he! " Commotion in the city Intense excite- ment among the Irish Charges of murder freely made Preparing for the prosecution A great funeral 197 CHAPTER III. Woodruff and his many stories The first clue The cottage at 1872 Ashland Avenue What the Carlsons saw and heard Suspicious circumstances Williams and his story Who is Williams? The Hammond, Ind., letter Burke's picture found Revell's mark What the salesman believed The bloody foot-prints Blood on the shutter Painting over crime The theater of the murder The broken arm- chair 210 CHAPTER IV. Once more the white horse A failure to identify u Maj." Sampson's story Coughlin's suspicious conduct His ar- rest O'Sullivan in custody The case against each Weav- ing the web Fatal circumstances accumulate Cooney, "the Fox" Chasing the fugitives Bewilderment upon all x CONTENTS. hands Where does the conspiracy reach? Charges against Alexander Sullivan Cronin's friends organize 223 CHAPTER V. Witnesses at the inquest Getting at the crime Cronin's prophecy The pamphlet again From the flat to the cottage Luke .Dillon on the stand A sensational statement Sullivan's protest He is arrested The report on the charges A re- view of the work done on the case^ Detective failures and detective successes The verdict of the Coroner's jury Newspaper comment 230 CHAPTER VI. Sullivan gives $20,000 bail A special grand jury Windes' testi- mony Martin Burke taken in Winnipeg How he was found Some secret histor} r A warning from Michigan John F. Beggs in jail His curious history A man of odd adventures His record Why he joined the CJan-na-Gael Indictments against Beggs, Coughlin, O'Sullivan, Burke, Cooney, Wood- ruff and John Kunze Sketches of the suspects 239 CHAPTER VII. The fight in Winnipeg Burke identified as Frank Williams An exciting legal battle Senator Kennedy turns up The extra- dition proceedings The Chicago end of the case Help for Burke Beggs' effort for release Dwj-er flies from the city Burke brought from Manitoba The U J. G." dispatch The prisoner's precautions Fears of a rescue The jump from the train Hurried to his prison "Not guilty !" The rival picnics Funds for the prosecution 258 CHAPTER VIII. Closing up the case Klahre and the tin box Mrs. Whalen and her visits to the jail Will any one confess ? The prisoners stubborn Trying for a severance The change of venue Woodruff separated from the others Woes of a "confessor" The suspects before Judge McConnell Ending of the pre- liminaries Calling the conspiracy case 271 CONTENTS. xi BOOK IV, TUB LEGAL, BATTLE}. CHAPTER I. Wanted, a jury The attorneys on either side Luther Laflin Mills and Wm. J. Hynes How they came into the case Hynes and Alexander Sullivan Forrest, Donahoe and Wing Their peculiarities A legal tournament The challenges The first juror Cost of the panel Expensive articles Odd statistics of the case The lesson of the Anarchist trials Popular speculations on the result The jury complete Who the men were 285 CHAPTER II. A bomb-shell in the court Charges of bribery How the crime was discovered A talesman's story $1,000 for a verdict Excitement in the city "Peaty's in the box" Bailiffs Hanks and Salamon arrested Other captures Wild suspicions John Graham in custody His connection with A. S. Trude, Sullivan's lawyer His reputation The "J. G." dispatch again Henry E. Stoltenberg brought in A special grand jury Indictments all around An amazing attempt. . . ..300 CHAPTER III. State's Attorney Longenecker opens the case What the State agreed to prove The coil of evidence Getting down to hard work "Call Henry Roesch" The finding of the body Cronin's "base-ball finger" A tailor's tale Leg measure- ments AVhat a barber remembered The scar on the head Maurice Morris and Joseph O'Byrne Completing the identification The dentist and the teeth 310 CHAPTER IV. How the end came The broken skull The hour of death A curious time-piece The record of the stomach Dr. Moore and the newspapers Dinan and Coughlin The detective's plea The driver of the buggy Mrs. Conklin's story The xii CONTENTS. stranger with the card Cronin drives away The last scenes "God knows how long" O'Sullivan's explanation Epi- sodes of the legal work 328 CHAPTER V. The State's full case The trial committee not proven The chances for Beggs Coughlin, Burke and O'Sullivan about the Carlson cottage A fatal drink The case against Kunze Unfortunate cleanliness Mertes, the milkman Details of Cronin's last night The theory of the murder The Doctor's clothes found at last Sensational scene in court Mrs. Hoer- tel on the stand Her startling evidence Clancey and O'Sul- livan The experts on the relics The volume of proof Dangerous revelations 344 CHAPTER VI. The case for the defense Contradictions of the State's witnesses The white horse again Attacking Mrs. Conklin's identi- fication of the famous animal Impeaching alibis for Kunze, Coughlin, Burke and O'Sullivan The German Clan-na-Gael Why Kunze said he would be arrested Mat Dannahy's evidence Coughlin at the station O'Sullivan's whereabouts Circumstance against circumstance 360 CHAPTER VII. The case for the defense continued An alibi for the white horse Louis Budenbender's testimony "It was a gray horse" The surprise from Hoboken More expert evidence on hair and blood corpuscles How scientists disagree Interesting details The philosophy of not knowing Arresting a witness How Budenbender was subpoenaed Mertes again on the stand Carlson's testimony seriously impeached A breach in the wall of evidence The prisoners' hooe 376 CHAPTER VIII. Evidence in rebuttal A curious incident "That is a lie!" Attacking the alibis Swanson's famous drive Dan Cough- lin's knives A sensational episode T. T. Conklin and the Lowenstein brothers on the stand Coughlin's trousers The knives and their meaning 390 CONTENTS. xiii BOOK V. THE APPEAL TO THE JURY. CHAPTER I. Longenecker's review of the case The " mountain peaks " of the evidence The secret committee Letters of Beggs and Spel- man u That committee reports to me alone " From Camp 20 to the Clark Street flai From the flat to the Carlson cot- tage A chain of guilt Why Cronin was denounced O'Sullivan's contract Burke and his flight Coughlin's share in the plot Kunze at the flat An array of damning circumstances Common sense and circumstantial evi- dence 403 CHAPTER II. Judge Wing's discourse Stating the case for Dan Coughlin U A strangely circumstantial case " The famous Hull case cited A word for the Clan-na-Gael Daniel O'Connell and broad patriotism "St. Bartholomew's night and the fires kindled by Calvin " A careful statement of the evidence The distinction between suspicion and proof An eloquent plea 424 CHAPTER III. George Ingham for the State A powerful plea " Why was Dr. Cronin slain ? Because he was condemned to die ! " The prosecution's view of circumstantial evidence Conspirators and accessories Tracing the plot Kunze's interruption '' God knows I am innocent" Daniel Donahoe's plea for O'Sullivan and Kunze Analyzing the motives Mistaken identity What the law considers a reasonable doubt The presumption of innocence The dnty of jurors indi- vidually 435 CHAPTER IV. Hynes' address to the jury His wonderful voice Examining the defense Taking refuge in alibis O'Sullivan's guilt Where was Dan Coughlin ? Burke's damning flight The xiv CONTENTS. least guilty conspirator A chance for Kunze Mat Dan- nahy's testimony Why Cronin was murdered The trial in the dark A murderous slander Marshaling the facts An impassioned plea for justice Scenes in the court- room 459 CHAPTEE V. The case for Beggs William A. Foster takes the floor Amen- ities between counsel The Clan-na-Gael not on trial Pri- vate vengeance instead of public justice Beggs' life an open book His assistance to the State " My client is not a fool, tool or dupe " Dr. Cronin was a dynamiter The election in Camp 20 A curious omission Compliments for Mr. Ing- ham " Don't forget Beggs " A heated debate Beggs at the reunion "Tell all you know" An eloquent sum- mary 479 CHAPTER VI. The last word for the prisoners Forrest's wonderful address An ingenious and forcible plea " The jury is bound to ac- quit " The law of reasonable doubt Whose was the hidden hand ? Suspiciously prodigious memories The futility of expert evidence As to Mrs. Hoertel " F. W.'s" hand- writing Coughlin and Kunze Mrs. Conklin's mistakes A motiveless crime An appeal for Burke "No Peroration have 1 " " Do your duty." 491 CHAPTER VII. Mr. Mills' Illness Disappointment in the court Too sick too speak State's Attorney Longenecker takes his place A forc- ible summing up Judge McConnell's instructions The law of murder and the law of conspiracy Thedutyof the jurors A magnificent presentation of the law The jury retires How the prisoners acted A criminal museum Suspense through the city The verdict 510 INTRODUCTION. 5HE matter contained in the following pages is, I believe, as nearly the truth, in fact and in inference, as any one can come who does not pretend to more than an anxious desire that the truth should be told in the Cronin case ; or to more than such access to the facts as the title page of this volume displays. I know that a book written in this fashion will not please the eager partisans of either side in this controversy. It is simply an effort to set forth acknowledged and indisputable matters so ar- ranged that the reader can grasp their meaning and their bearing, whether favorable to his own view or not. About one thing alone have I been in doubt, and that is as to whether I should have admitted into the volume the ritual of the Clan-na-Gael as it appears in Chapter VI. of the first book. Mr. Loewenstein, the city -editor of the St. Louis Republic^ secured and published this matter from a source well known in St. Louis, making it public property. It was copied all over the country at the time, a similar document was sworn to before the grand jury by Luke Dillon, and it is an affront to the intelligence of any man to pretend that there is any secrecy left about it. I can see no good reason why it should not be reproduced here while there are many reasons why it should. Another thing which is necessary to say before quitting this personal explanation is this. Upon two points solely have I asked the advice of friends, and in both of them I have not taken the advice given. One point was as to the title page of the book; the xvi INTRODUCTION. other, the matter referred to above, about the old ritual of the Clan. The opinions, arguments and inferences are my own, and they are published without conference or consultation with any man. No one is responsible save myself, and for what any will find to criticise I must be the sole target. All that I can say finally is this, that in one respect this vol- ume resembles a certain well known Southern clime it is paved with goo'd intentions. JOHN T. McENNis. CHICAGO, December, 1889 liar &>'ff. e-jTfl/jU^ BOOK I. ^ __ THIS DYNAMITK WAR. CHAPTEB I. Celt and Saxon The Irrepressible Conflict The Seven Hundred Years' War "To Hell or Connaught" Memories of Crom- well No Surrender The Orange Faction Limerick and its Sequel Flight of the Wild Geese A Legacy of the Stuarts The Penal Laws The Shan Van Vocht From Wolfe Tone to Robert Emmet "I thank God I have a Country to Sell" O'Connell and Emancipation The Great Betrayal Fifty Years' Evictions Starving out a whole Peo- ple A Fight for Life The Choice of Weapons. E month of May in the year of our Lord 1169, and a rocky promontory on the coast of Wexford bearing the barbarous name of "Bag-an-bun," may seem to the reader far in time and wide in space from the month of May in the year 1889, and the little frame cottage on Ashland Avenue in the city of Chicago,* where Dr. Cronin was murdered. Yet to understand the one, the reader must know something of the other. Fortu- nately for his patience the connection is one which can be rapidly sketched, and I will agree to pack all the ancient history I pro- pose to tell in this one chapter. A band of Welsh and Norman adventurers there began the conquest of the Irish, which is still going on after seven cen- turies, with as much bitterness as ever, and with as little hope of truce or peace. The Saxon element was not long in following the pioneers, and the struggle of the Celt with the Saxon began. Peo- ple talk with wonder of the thirty years' war on the Continent; but here is a seven hundred years' war still in progress. I shall not argue mooted points, or marshal authorities, but here is what everyone of Irish blood believes : (17) 18 THE DYNAMITE WAR. 1st. That we have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 2d. That the English Government has done, and is doing, all in its power to prevent our kin from enjoying these rights. When the British Empire is brought to the great assize of history, many will be the counts in the indictment against it. In Ireland it has ruled by secret murder and open massacre, by bribery, by treason, by all those crimes which make the name of England hateful to the world; and when, frantic under the bur- den of wrong, the Gael mutters his oath of vengeance, or calls out to Europe to witness the infamy of his oppression, there is the ready sneer that it is all the "blind hysterics of the Celt." Let it be what it will, and let us get to facts from causes. The Irish people, and I know them as I know myself, have had welded into the very core of their being a burning hate of Eng- land, that paper compromises or soft words will not quench. You will find this motive in the true Gael, if you miss all the others. It lies beneath the surface. He may not wear it on his sleeve ; but it is there deeper and more of a living force even than his religion. Demagogues may play upon it, "self-seeking" patriots may thrive upon it. By it he may be swindled, misled, betrayed, but you cannot kill the sentiment until you kill the Celt. And his children will suck it in with their mother's milk, until the day does come when the long reckoning will be presented for settle- ment, as come it must. Cromwell drove the people from the more fertile provinces with the cynic direction, "To hell or Connaught," and to hell or Connaught they went, carrying with them nothing from the lands of their fathers but hate, and the wild purpose to fight while they could. At Drogheda men, women and children were put to the sword in one common massacre, "to encourage the others." William of Orange followed in the Protector's footsteps, and more THE DYNAMITE WAR. 19 men and women were killed for the moral effect. The treaty of Limerick is one monument to English treachery; the Orange faction another. And all the time while a disarmed people were exposed to the savage assaults of a ruthless soldiery, the adven- turers, with perjury as their chief weapon, were confiscating Irish land. With one hand on Ireland's throat, and* the other in the Irish pocket, the England of the revolution cuts an heroic figure in the last two centuries. Everything that ingenuity could devise to destroy the lead- ers, to demoralize and enslave the people, and to rob all classes, from the chieftain in his castle to the beggar in his hovel, was done. It was the sordid assault of a national garroter, and in part it won. The leaders were as a class driven out ; they formed the "wild geese" who passed over to France, and who left their mark at Fontenoy and upon many another stricken field. The people were dispossessed of their farms and of their property, and the penal laws came to trample still more cruelly downward a brave, generous and deserving race. For a time Ireland looked to France. There were the soldiers of the Brigade winning honor and vengeance, but French help was a miserable dependence, despite the song of the Shan Van Vocht, and in 1798 the unarmed people desperately rose. They were beaten down of course. They had no cannon, practically no firearms, and no cavalry, against one of the best equipped kingdoms of Europe. A wild carnival of vengeance upon the rebels followed. Men were hung, shot, drowned, upon no trial, merely because they were Irish. Their dishonored bodies were thrown into vast pits, still called croppies' holes, and Ireland was once more pacified. There was no more confiscation to make, because the garrison had long before made away with all the property on the island, and there was nothing left to take but life. It was taken greedily, and this not a hundred years ago. 20 THE DYNAMITE WAR. For a time Ireland lay prostrate. Nationality was dead. With shameless and open bribery the act of Union was passed by Lord Castlereagh his criminal work fitting in well with the time when a representative in the Irish Parliament could calmly reply to the taunt that he was selling his country with the cool and pious statement, "I thank God I have a country to sell." The noble but futile struggle of Emmet, and of other self- sacrificing patriots, was in vain, and the people could only wait, hoping against hope, and laying up stores of vengeance to be drawn upon later. Daniel O'Connell was the first leader of the new Ireland. By his own unaided force he secured Catholic emancipation, which he believed, and the Irish people believed, the first step toward free- dom, and yet which was the greatest Irish mistake of the century. It was a sop to Cerberus no more. The "respectable Catholics," as they were called in derision, went over in a body to the Government, which had offices to give and money to pay out, de- serting their country at the very time its hopes were highest, and its prospects brightest. They fell away from the Repeal agita- tion, and, in spite of O'Connell's desperate struggles, that agita- tion came to naught, and Ireland once more saw that truth which is the only truth in the struggle with England, that physical force is the only argument to which the Government will listen. So rose the "Young Ireland" party, which began with the foundation of the Nation newspaper, by Charles Gavan Duffy, in 1842, and as it rose the Repeal agitation crumbled away, getting its death blow from the Maynooth grants, by which the English Government bought up church help, and induced the Vatican to become its ally. In 1846 came the famine. The economic condition of the island had gone from bad to worse. Rack rents were the rule, poverty was the rule. The people had been brought to rely upon the potato as their staple article of diet, and in that year the potato rot appeared. The corn crop was abundant, but that had to go for THE DYNAMITE WAR. 21 the rent. Fever and famine scourged the land. The people lay dead but unburied by the road-side. Those who could fled be- yond the seas, but so wasted and worn, that, just as an instance, of 493 passengers on the "Queen," 136 died; of 552 on the "Avon," 236 died. 89,783 persons embarked for Canada in 1847; 6,100 of these perished on the voyage, 4,100 on their arrival, 5,200 more in the hospital, 1,900 in the town to which they repaired and this, remember, is from the official report. No man can tell how many people died of the famine and the fever. They were mere Irish, and it did not matter. Says one of the most careful writers on this subject, T. P. O'Connor, M. P., in his history of the Parnell movement: "The population of Ireland by March 30, 1851, at the same ratio of increase as held in England and Wales, would have been 9,018,799 it was 6,552,385. It was the calculation of the Census Commissioners that the deficit, independently of the emigration, represented by the mortality in the five famine years, was 985,366, nearly a million of people. The greater proportion of this million of deaths must be set down to hunger and the epidemics which hunger generated. To those who died at home must be added the large number of people who, embarking on vessels or landing in America or elsewhere, with frames weakened by the famine, or diseases resulting from the famine, perished in the manner already described. Father O'Rourke, calculating these at 17 per cent, of the emigration of 1,180,409, arrives at the total of 200,668 per- sons who died either on the voyage from their country, or on their arrival at their destination. This would raise the total of deaths caused through the Irish famine to upwards of a million people." John Mitchell, Smith O'Brien and the other Young Ireland ers made a desperate stand in 1848. They were rewarded with the prison and exile, and Ireland, now starved into paralysis, once more waited. 22 THE DYNAMITE WAR. In 1850 the Tenant Rights movement began. William Keogh put himself at its head, only later to betray the people for a judgeship, like another Judas, with his thirty pieces of silver. The record of the time is so hopeless and so disgusting that I will not dwell upon it. Suffice it to say that once more every hope the Irish people could form of justice and right through peaceful agitation was blasted, and with cynical propriety the very man who had held himself out as the leader and the hope of Ireland, was put to the work of crushing his kinsmen, work that he did with the loving care of an apostate, anxious to prove his conversion by the zeal of his persecution. And thus we bring the narration down to 1865, which may be fairly regarded as the opening of the present campaign. Perhaps I should not have gone so far back for the beginning of my story. It is a commencement that leads itself to the favorite English defense, that Irish wrongs are ancient history. To go no further back than the present reign of Queen Vic- toria, here is the awful record of what British rule has done in Ireland, summarized and abridged to its ultimate limits. The article is taken from the Chicago Citizen, and is the best and most succinct explanation of why Irishmen hate England that the writer has yet seen. It runs as follows: There are many reasons why the inhabitants of Ireland should submit gracefully to the rule of the Queen and Empress, Victoria, by the grace of God supreme ruler of the British Isles. Her many benefactions to the "mere Irish" are well known, and in this article I shall attempt to set them forth with circumstantiality. If the unalterable and benign bestowal of rags, poverty, starva- tion, chains and the gallows be not sufficient to awaken the grati- tude of a people, I should like to know what is! At all events, here is the record : 1837 Her most gracious Majesty began her reign without coercion. Gustave de Beaumont, a French writer, noting the condition of Ireland at the time, says: "I have seen the Indian in his forest, and the negro in his chains, and I thought that I be- 24 THE DYNAMITE WAR. % held the lowest form of human misery; but I did not then know the lot of Ireland. . . Seeing it, one recognizes that no theoretical limits can be assigned to the misfortunes of nations." 1838 The Duke of "Wellington declared that never was a country in which poverty existed to such a degree as in Ireland. (1) An Arms act passed. 1839 London Times, Oct. 25, 1839: "In order to benefit a small knot of haughty, unfeeling, rapacious landlords, the well- being of millions is disregarded." (2) An Unlawful Oaths act passed. 1840 (3) Another Arms act. 1841 Two coercive measures (4) an Outrage act and (5) an Arms act. 1842 Provision riots. Numerous outrages. 1843 Thackeray, in "Irish Sketch Book": "Men are suffer- ing and starving by millions." (7) Another Arms act, and (8) an act consolidating all previous Coercion acts. 1844 In his "Travels in Ireland," Kohl, a German writer, says: "I doubt whether in the whole world a nation can be found subjected to the physical privations of the peasantry in some parts of Ireland." Disraeli, House of Commons, Feb. 16, 1844: "We have a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, the weakest executive in the world: that is the Irish question." (9) Unlaw- ful Oaths acts passed. 1845 Times, June 36, 1845: "The people have not enough to eat. They are suffering a real, though artificial, famine." (10) Unlawful Oaths act passed. 1846 Captain Wynne, a government official: "Famine ad- vances on us with great strides." Lord John Russell : "We have made Ireland I speak it deliberately the most degraded and most miserable country in the world." (11) Constabulary En- largement act. 1847 Mr. Bingham, House of Commons: "We are driving six millions of people to despair and madness. . . The people of England have most culpably and foolishly connived at a national iniquity. The landlords exercise their rights with a hand of iron, and deny their duties with a brow of brass." Times, Feb. 27: "89,758 emigrants embarked for Canada. One person in every five was dead by the end of the year." John Morley, House of THE DYNAMITE WAR. 25 f Commons, June 3, 1853: "All men agree that Ireland has been misgoverned. And who misgoverned her ? The State." (12) Crimes and Outrage act passed. 1848 Great famine fever. Insurrection. (13) Treason Amendment act. (14) Suspension of Habeas Corpus. (15) An- other Oaths act. John Mitchell was condemned, under the first- mentioned act, to fourteen years' transportation. 1849 Great famine fever continued. Census Commission- ers declared that above one million and a half suffered from the fever since the beginning of '46, and added: "but no pen has recorded the number of the forlorn and starving who perished by the wayside or in the ditches." 90,440 persons evicted. In the Kilrush union alone 15,000 people were unhoused. Sir Robert Peel, speaking on June 8, in regard to the Kilrush evictions, said: "I do not think the records of any country, civilized or bar- barous, present materials for such a picture." On July 29 occurred the emeute of Ballingarry; James Stephens was wounded. (16) Suspension of Habeas Corpus. This act was passed through both houses in one evening, and William Smith O'Brien and others condemned to death. 1850 104,163 persons were evicted. (17) Crimes and Out- rage act passed. 1851 282,545 human dwellings destroyed by evicting bri- gade for ten past years, and 68,023 persons evicted this year. (13) Unlawful Oaths act. 1852 Sergeant Heron, Q. C.: " Ireland this year received a larger sum in charity from America than was realized by the profits of the trade of exporting horned cattle." London Times: " The name of an Irish landlord stinks in the nostrils of Christen- dom." 43.494 persons evicted. 1853 24,589 persons were evicted. (19) Crimes and Out- rage act. 1854 John Bright, July 6: "There are districts in Ireland which no man can travel through without feeling that some enor- mous crime has been committed by the government under which the people live." 19,749 persons were evicted this year. (20) Crimes and Outrage act. 1856 5,114 persons evicted. (21) Peace Preservation act passed. 1857 5,475 persons evicted. 26 THE DYNAMITE WAR. 1858 4,643 persons evicted. (22) Peace Preservation act passed. For the previous six years Ireland had been without political organization. O'Donovan Rossa and James Stephens, out of despair, started Fenianism. " New Ireland," page 196, says : " The last endeavor of the Irish masses to accomplish ame- lioration within the lines of the constitution had been baffled and crushed." 1859 3,872 persons evicted. 1860 The chief secretary announced, on April 17, that "a large amount of destitution does in fact exist in the western dis- tricts." 2,985 persons were evicted during this year. Among the evictors was Lord Plunket, Protestant Lord Bishop of Tuam. "A hideous scandal," said the Times of Nov. 27. Lord John Russell sympathetically described how an entire Irish village which housed 270 persons had been razed to the ground. (23) Peace Preservation act. 1861 5,288 persons evicted. Terrible clearances in Glen- beigh, Donegal. 1862 5,617 persons evicted. (24) Peace Preservation act, and (25) Unlawful Oaths act. 18638,695 persons evicted. 1864 9,261 persons evicted. 1865 4,512 persons evicted. (26) Peace Preservation act passed. Lord R. Cecil, House of Commons, Feb. 24: "I am afraid the one thing which is peculiar to Ireland is the govern- ment of England." A. M. Sullivan's " New Ireland," page 261: "A time of trouble and of terrors. Midnight arrests and seizures, hurried nights and perilous escapes, wild rumors and panic alarms scared every considerable city and town." O'Donovan Rossa sen- tenced to penal servitude for life. 1866 3,571 persons evicted. (27) Suspension of Habeas Corpus act. 1867 1,489 persons evicted. John Bright, at Rochdale, Dec. 23: "The grievances have not been remedied. The de- mands of the people have not been conceded. Nothing has been done in Ireland except under the influence of terror." Attempted insurrection. 1868 3,002 persons evicted. John Bright, House of Com- mons, December : "I have not observed, since I have been in Parliament, anything on this Irish question which approaches the dignity of statesmanship." Gold win Smith: "Irish legislation THE DYNAMITE WAR. 27 within the last forty years, notwithstanding the adoption of some remedial measures, has failed through the indifference of Parlia- ment to the sentiments of Ireland." (29) Suspension of the Ha- beas Corpus act. 1869 1,741 persons evicted. Between 1829 and this year twenty -seven bills and resolutions were offered by the Irish mem- bers on the land question, and every one was rejected. John Bright, House of Commons, April 30: U I say that the condition of things in Ireland which has existed in Ireland for the last 200 years, for the last 1 00 years, for the last 50 years, would have been utterly impossible if Ireland had been removed from the shelter and the influence and the power of Great Britain. The time has come when acts of constant repression in Ireland are un- just and evil, and when no more acts of repression should ever pass this house unless accompanied with acts of a remedial and consoling nature." 1870 2,616 persons evicted. Gladstone, House of Com- mons, March 11: " The oppression of a majority is detestable and odious. The oppression of a minority is only by one degree less detestable and odious." (30) Peace Preservation act. 1872 2,47G persons evicted. 1873 3,078 persons evicted. (33) Peace Preservation act. 1874 3,721 persons evicted. 1875 3,323 persons evicted. Prof. Cairns' Political Essays, p. 197: "I own I cannot wonder that a thirst for revenge should spring from such calamities." (34) Peace Preservation act. 1876 2,550 persons evicted. 1877 2,177 persons evicted. 1878 4,679 persons evicted. 1879 Famine. The rates for the support of the destitute reached $5,000,000. 6,239 persons evicted. 1880 The paupers in the workhouses in February numbered 59,870, as against 51,302, the highest number during the famine of 1846. The number, additional, receiving outdoor relief was 117,454. The number relieved by the Dublin Mansion House Committee for week ending Feb. 28 was 519,625. 10,457 per- sons evicted. 1881 17,341 persons evicted. (35) Peace Preservation act. (36) Suspension of Habeas Corpus. (27) Arms act. 1882 26,836 persons evicted. Mr. Trevelyan, in House of Commons: "At this moment, in one part of the country, men are 28 THE DYNAMITE WAR. being turned out of their houses, actually by battalions, who are no more able to pay the arrears of these bad years than they are able to pay the national debt." (38) Crimes act. 1883 17,855 persons evicted. 1884 20,025 persons evicted. 1885 15,423 persons evicted, 1,000 persons imprisoned without trial. Mr. Chamberlain, at Wet Islington, June 17: "It is a system which is founded on the bayonets of 30,000 soldiers, encamped permanently in a hostile country." 1886 Mulhall's " Fifty Years of National Progress ": " Ire- land The present reign has been the most disastrous since that of Elizabeth, as the following statistics show : Died of famine, 1,225,000; number ofemigrants, 4,186,000; number of persons evicted, 3,668,000. * * * * The number of persons evicted is equal to 75 per cent of the actual population. No country in Europe or else- where has suffered such wholesale extermination." Lord Aber- deen, at Leith, in October: " These evictions were always carried out in the Queen's name." Mr. Gladstone, House of Commons, April 16: " We are particeps criminis; we, with power in our hands, looked on." 1887 Coercion bill (39) which is to last forever. 1888 Imprisonment of Irish leaders. This is the record of the past half century of British rule in Ireland, facts given officially and commented on by the leading statesmen and writers of England. They are commended to the attention of Pope Leo XIII as a full explanation of the reasons which have induced what is left of the Irish nation to defend themselves by plans of campaign, boycotting or 'any other weapon which can be readily seized and used by a people when set upon by the band of rapacious robbers which the Times and other authorities describe at length. H. P. M. In view of such an indictment as this, Irishmen would be unworthy the sympathy and respect of mankind if they did not make some effort to release themselves from the cruel alien rule which has done this to them. What weapon shall they choose? But England is strong and Ireland weak. There is an em- pire of 200,000,000 on one side and an unarmed, unequipped THE DYNAMITE WAR. 29 people of 4,000,000 on the other. What effort and organization can be made must be secret, and secret it has been. For a hundred years past there has always been some hidden focus about which brave men could rally, and as one organiza- tion fell, smashed either by outer force or inner treachery, an- other has stepped into its place, and the unequal fight has still been waged. Any conspiracy large enough to free a nation, large enough even to have a reasonable hope of doing something, must include a great many men. There can be no efficient guard against the enrollment of spies and detectives no barrier against treachery which can be practicably applied. So, as soon as this Fenian Society and the Clan-na-Gael became dangerous, they were honey- combed with spies, and money was poured out like water to procure the betrayal of their plans. CHAPTER II. The Open Movement Home Rule and Its Leaders Isaac Butt Charles Stewart Parnell Divided England Davitt's Posi- tion Dillon, O'Brien, and the Plan of Campaign A Hero of the Jail Experiences on the Plank Bed How the Police Treat Free Men The "Garrison" in Extremities Retribu- tion and the "Removables" The Landlord's Last Chance Gladstone and His Work Parnell's Prophecy. ANY men are .proverbially of many minds, and hence, while some favored physical force as the one weapon against England, others, more conservative, have always hoped rather than believed that something might be done for Ireland along peaceful and constitutional lines. We have already spoken of O'Connell and the Repeal agita- tion, and of Keogh and the great betrayal. When the unripe and futile Fenian Revolt of 1866 was provoked prematurely and crushed, the minds of the Irish turned once more in a new di- rection. A close examination of the whole situation has convinced every thinking Celt that at the root of most of the injustice to modern Ireland stands the legislative union with Great Britain; that repealed, there would be at any rate an easement of the fric- tion. Nor is this a blind and vain hope. A sewer cannot be built in Dublin until London has said yes ; and on one occasion, since made historic, it was proven that it cost the corporation of Dublin 9,000 for parliamentary permission to tax itself, build itself and pay itself for a most necessary conduit. This is a mere trifle. Had there been an Irish congress in the famine years, it is agreed now that there would have been no famine; for Irish statesmen were a unit at that time in urging upon government a measure which would have ended the scarcity. It was simply closing the ports against the export of food products. (30) THE DYNAMITE WAR. 31 It rnay surprise the reader to learn that during the famine years Ireland exported cereals as follows: In 1845, 3,251,901 quarters; in 1846, 1,826,132 quarters; in 1847, 969,490 quarters; in 1848, 1,952,592 quarters; in 1849, 1,435,963 quarters. The reader will remember that one quarter of wheat is equal to 392 pounds of flour, or 470 pounds of bread an ample yearly ration for a man, As far as cattle are concerned, there were exported during the worst years of the famine nearly half a million pounds more in money value than was required to feed 3,000,000 hunger-stricken people. But the food export was not checked, nor was any wise legislation begun until too late to save millions, while the emer- gency men and the battering-ram were permitted to add their horrors to the already deplorable condition of the peasantry. It would require a volume rather than a chapter, to show in how many startling ways English legislation even when that legislation has had a friendly purpose has failed in Ireland. To every American the case is one which does not need making out. It is a political axiom, that a people should govern themselves, which does not need proof. But how to come to it ? Isaac Butt began life as an Orange Tory, and ended as the father of the Home Rule movement. One of the most gifted students of Trinity, he was chosen to answer O'Connell when the latter made his great repeal speech before the corporation of Dublin, and Butt's address is even yet considered the best presentation of the argument for the union. It took years to alter his convictions, but they were altered, and for twenty years Ireland's hopes were centered on him. Butt saw the weakness of the English position, which is, of course, in the land question. The disestablishment of the Irish Church brought together elements in Ireland which before then there was a difficulty in allying, and the Home Rule party was composed of Protestants 32 THE DYNAMITE WAR. and Catholics. Isaac Butt was called to the leadership, and the fight against the very citadel of oppression was begun. Honest, fearless, eloquent, and deeply versed* in economic science, a patriot in the very best sense of the term, and a provi- dential man in his day, Butt was not destined to lead the party to success, for his limitations were too serious. Nothing is gained from England by rosewater, and it was rosewater that Butt had to use under the circumstances of the case. He was without money, and he was not backed up by a strong and vigilant organization. He had to take his members of Parliament as he could get them, ' and many were men who went into the movement with an eye single to the price the Government would probably pay them upon selling out It was really upon the night of April 22, 1875, that the new movement took its present victorious form, or rather, that it found in its hand the potent weapon of obstruction. Upon that night Butt had desired to delay one of the innumerable coercion acts, and he asked Joseph Biggar to take the floor and speak for a "pretty good while." Biggar spoke for four hours. Says T. P. O'Connor : "Neither Mr. Butt, nor the House of Commons, nor Mr. Big- gar himself, could possibly have foreseen the momentous place which this night's work was destined to hold in all the subsequent history of the relations between England and Ireland. It was on this night that the policy was born which has since become known to all the world the policy known as 'obstruction' by its enemies, and as the 'active policy' by its friends. It will be appro- priate here to give a sketch of the man to whom this portentous political offspring owes its being "There are few men of whom the estimate of friends and enemies is so diverse. The feeling of his friends and intimates is affectionate almost to fanaticism. When there are private and convivial meetings of the Irish party, the effort is always made to limit the toasts to the irreducible mininum, for talking has natur- THE DYNAMITE WAR. 33 ally ceased to be much of an amusement to men who have to do so much of it in the performance of public duties. There is one toast, however, which is never set down, and is always proposed: this toast is 'The Health of Mr. Biggar.' Then there occurs a scene which is pleasant to look upon. There arises from all the party one long, spontaneous, universal cheer, a cheer straight from every man'e heart; the usually frigid speech of Mr. Parnell grows warm and even tender; everything shows that, whoever stands highest in the respect, Mr. Biggar holds first place in the affec- tions of his comrades. There is another and not uninteresting phenomenon of these occasions. To the outside world there is no man presents a sterner, a more prosaic and harder front than Mr. Biggar. On such occasions the other side of his character stands revealed. His breast heaves, his face flushes, he dashes his hand with nervous haste to his eyes ; but the tears have already en and are rushing down his face." Following this came shortly to the front another man, who soon made his name a watchword for Ireland. This was Charles Stewart Parnell. Less than a year ago, in Dublin, I was told a cu- rious story of Parnell's entrance into public life. The county of Dublin was to be contested; it would be an expensive fight, and a hopeless one, but Mr. Butt was anxious that it should be made. In a conference between three or four of the leaders of the party, in a little room on Sackville Street, name after name was consid- ered, but no conclusion could be reached. "Why not try Parnell ?" said one. "Who is he ?" asked several of the gentlemen. "A Wicklow squire, a thorough believer in Home Rule, and a man that would make a sacrifice if he saw it was needed." Parnell was seen, and he came to Dublin the next day, and had a long conference with Butt. The man who had proposed him asked Butt a few minutes afterward what he thought aboujt him. "Don't ask me," Butt replied, "I believe this fellow has be- 84 THE DYNAMITE WAR. witched me. I don't know what to think of him, but he is going to stand for Dublin." In his first speech at the rotunda Parnell broke down com- pletely from stage fright, and shortly afterward he was beaten for the membership, as he knew he would be, by Col. Taylor, who had an overwhelming majority. Within a year, the representa- tion of Meath becoming vacant through the death of John Mar- tin, Parnell was returned for that county, and he at once ranged himself with- Biggar to fight out the "active policy." A storm of abuse from friend and foe fell upon their de- voted heads. Obstruction was denounced as ungentleinanly and unfair. Butt's chief followers would have nothing to do with the two parliamentary pariahs who had no respect for the public opinion of the House. ' Mr. Biggar was especially lectured. He was told he was no gentleman, even by his own associates. George Bryan told Parliament apropos of Biggar's outrageous clearing of the gallery, when the Prince of Wales was present, that a man should be "a gentleman first, and a patriot afterwards." Biggar is in the pork trade, and this fact added to the un- popularity with which the sycophantic press regarded him. Said the London World, Edmund Yates' paper, about this time: "Heaven knows that I do not scorn a man because his path in life has led him among provisions. But though I may unaffectedly honor a provision dealer who is a Member of Parliament, it is with quite another feeling that I behold a Member of Parliament who is a provision dealer. Mr. Biggar brings the manner of his store into this illustrious assembly, and his manner, even for a Belfast store, is very bad. When he rises to address the house, which he did at least ten times to-night, a whiff of salt pork seems to float upon the gale, and the air is heavy with the odor of the kip- pered herring. One unacquainted with the actual condition of affairs might be forgiven if he thought there had been a large failure in the bacon trade, and that the House of Commons was a meeting of creditors and the right hon. gentlemen sitting on the Treasury Bench were members of the defaulting firm, who, hav- ing confessed their inability to pay ninepence in the pound, THE DYNAMITE WAR. 35 were suitable and safe subjects for the abuse of an ungenerous creditor." Discussing this period, in which he himself played a brilliant role, T. P. O'Connor declares that the new policy was developed rather than formulated. It began simply in the practice of block- ing a number of bills in order to bring them under the half-past twelve rule, which forbids opposed measures to be taken after that hour. It also became the custom of either the member for Cavan or the member for Meath to propose motions of adjournment in various forms when half-past twelve was reached, on the ground that proper discussion could not take place at so late an hour. Then, interstices of time which the Government would gladly em- ploy for advancing some stage of their measures, were filled in by the Irish members. Thus, for instance, a bill standing for second reading would be approaching that stage at twenty minutes past at an ordinary sitting, or half-past five on a Wednesday. To the horror and disgust of ever}' body else, Mr. Biggar or Mr. Parnell would rise and occupy the time between that hour and half-past twelve or a quarter to six, when contentious business could be no longer discussed, and further consideration of the measure had to be postponed to another day. In this manner the two mem- bers gradually felt their way, became more practiced in speaking, and obtained an intimate acquaintance with the rules of the House. Throughout all this time, of course, they were harassed by interruptions, shouts of "Divide," groans, and calls to order; and for a time, at least, Mr. Parnell used occasionally to lay him- self open to effective interruption by his yet immature acquaint- ance with the laws of the assembly. "How," said a young fol- lower of his to the Irish leader, "are you to learn the rules of the House?" "By breaking them," was Mr. Parnell's reply; and this was the method by which he himself gained his information. Isaac Butt, every one of whose instincts and prejudices was opposed to this sort of a fight, would have nothing to do with Biggar and Parnell, and he declared that if they had the support 36 THE DYNAMITE WAR. f of the Irish people he would retire from politics as from a "vul- gar brawl." The other members of the Home Rule party with some few honorable exceptions held aloof, and the two champions were left to hold the gap almost alone. But if the politicians were not with them the people were. The struggle had fired the Irish heart, and the nation, which had utterly lost confidence and hope in any sort of good that could come out of parliamentary work, on account of the long series of betrayals they had met in the House of Commons, began to look hopefully to the two leaders who had braved the very worst that the enemy could do, and who had proved that there was at least something possible in Parliament. The change of front began in England, among the Irish set- tled there, who have always been the most energetic and uncom- promising of the sea-divided Clan-na-Gael. There, at the close of 1877, the Home Rule confederation deposed Butt from the presi- dency of the organization and elected Parnell in his place. Butt died May 5, 1879, and a compromise candidate, Mr. Shaw, was chosen chairman of the Home Rule party in Parlia- ment. Parnell and Biggar, with a growing band of followers, pushed forward their parliamentary campaign, and were at last able to show the Irish people results for their work. In the meantime another and extra-parliamentary movement had now come to the front, destined to have the most impor- tant results upon the Irish question. This was the Land League. Michael Davitt was born in 1 846, in Mayo. His family were evicted and went to England to live. There Davitt grew up. Losing his right arm in a mill, and being unfitted for manual labor, a struggle was made by his family to give him an educa- tion which would replace his loss. Never were sacrifices by loved ones more amply repaid. Davitt's national history is soon told. He cast himself into Fenian ism with all the devotion of a young and ardent nature. On May 16, 1870, he was arrested in Lon- THE DYNAMITE WAR. 37 don, and on the information of the infamous Corydon, the in- former, he was sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude. In confinement he had time to reflect deeply over the whole Irish problem, and when he was released on a ticket of leave, in December, 1877, he was able to show the world what his solution was. He came to America and here met John Devoy and other exiles. The whole situation was patiently and carefully exam- ined, and what has come to be called the "New Departure" was resolved upon. The result was that Davitt returned to Ireland and estab- lished THE LAND LEAGUE, whose cardinal purpose, shorn of all * accidental circumstance, was the substitution of a peasant pro- prietorship for the present system of holding land in Ireland. On the 8th day of June, 1879, Mr. Parnell definitely put himself at the head of the League, which was not then an organi- zation, but a possibility. On October 21st following, the first meeting was held at the Imperial Hotel in Dublin. A definite programme was announced, Parnell was chosen president, and Davitt, who was the real heart and soul of the organization, but who was barred from the leadership by his own feeling that it would be better otherwise, was appointed one of the honorary secretaries. J. G. Biggar, "W. H. O'Sullivan and Patrick Egan were appointed treasurers, and Mr. Parnell was asked to go to America with John Dillon to ask for help from this side. 72,000 was at once subscribed. The history of what followed is so recent that every reader of this book must remember it. Parnell became the leader of the whole Irish people, with such trusted and trustworthy lieutenants as John Dillon, William O'Brien, Tim Healy, E. Harrington, and all the rest of that gallant band of Home Rulers who have finally rent English parties in twain and planted themselves firmly in the center. The vulnerable point of the English dominion in Ireland has 38 THE DYNAMITE WAK. always been the land question ; and against the land has the attack been directed. The result has been to reduce the "garrison," as it is called, to extremities, and compromises which would have been greedily accepted by the people ten years ago are now con- temptuously refused. The plan of campaign and the boycott have done their work .and undone all that Cromwell and William of Orange effected. Retribution awaits upon the " Removable Magistrates," who are the last anchors to windward the English landholders can rely upon. Already Gladstone has definitely committed the Liberal party to Home Rule, and Mr. Parnell has definitely declared that three general elections will not go by before justice will finally be done to Ireland, and by an Irish Parliament. CHAPTER III. Revolution Under Difficulties Fenianism and the Pope The Crusade against Secret Societies Hidden Conspiracies in Former Times The Old Man of the Mountain The Assas- sins or Hasheeshans Knights Templars and their Fate The Chouan The Red Internationale Nihilism, Socialism and Anarchy Penalties for Treason in Ireland and Italy Curious Secret Oaths The Hell-fire Club, and the Monks of the Screw Blood-curdling Rituals. &HOSE who have believed that in the strong arm lay the only hope for Ireland have found themselves antagonized by foes without and within. When a weak nation prepares to deliver an attack upon a strong one, when a small force has made up its mind to oppose a large one, there must necessarily be some period of secret preparation, if there is to be any hope for the result. For this reason the Irish revolutionists have been forced into secret societies ; and yet secret societies are under the ban of the Catholic Church. Their temporal salvation is menaced by England ; their eternal salvation is threatened by Rome. Among the Irish, too, the reader need not be told that the Catholic Church is a vital power, whose canons are taken by the people as the one unfailing guide of life and morals. Its attitude on any question secular or spiritual is of the chiefest importance, and hence the fact that it has set its face against the only possible manner in which a conspiracy for Ireland can be begun, has been one of the great factors in Irish failures. From the days of Pope Adrian, of pious memory, Papal interference in Ireland has always been, either wittingly or un- wittingly, on the English side of the controversy. Whether we examine the course of Rinucini in the 1640's or Persicd in the 1880's, the consequences are always the same, and the causes (39) 40 THE DYNAMITE WAR. alike. Giving the legates in every case credit for all the virtues which can dignify a churchman, their interference has been unfortunate, and the results disastrous. This is of course because Rome has steadily pi'oceeded upon the theory, even in our own times, that Ireland is a fief of the church, and the Celts in a special manner the subjects of the Holy Father. I do not mean that this theory has been advanced or even stated; but that it has been acted upon who can deny ? Is there any man fair and unprejudiced who can examine all the facts and say that after all the Temporal Sovereignty was not the paramount political issue among the Irish hierarchy up to within the last few years ? Does any one even yet go to the great and wealthy Seminary of May- nooth to find Irish nationality ? Do the Jesuits teach it ? I am not discussing the right or wrong of the case, but the fact. And the fact stands out that since O'Connellmade the initial blunder of getting Catholic emancipation, before the Repeal of the Union was secured, patriotism and religion in Ireland have been animated with different and even contrary purposes. As an Irish political force Catholicity was eliminated from the problem early in the century, but the people are only slowly learning it. The Fenian Society was at one time a hopeful and promising organization. In spite of all the open and veiled opposition of its enemies, the people flocked into the circles, and the Irish race all over the world was organized as it never had been before. Had the society waited ; had the insane raid on Canada been at least deferred; had wise and firm leadership prevented the premature exploitation of the revolt in Ireland, there was a fighting chance to win. It was so serious a conspiracy against the British rule that Pio Nono was compelled to launch at it the thunders of the church. Fenians could not be buried in consecrated ground. Cardinal McCabe proved that to the whole world in the HcManus funeral. It was from a Catholic divine that the statement came that "hell was not hot enough for such miscreants " as the Fenians, THE DYNAMITE WAR. 41 The record of that time goes to show an attitude on the part of the church which readers in 1889, who note with admiration the work of such prelates as Croke and Walsh, and such priests as Sheehy and McFadden and Stephens, of Falcarragh, can hardly understand. Under the Papal ban many withdrew from Fenian- ism. It had been disintegrating from other causes, but this was the coup de grace. To be perfectly fair, it must be admitted that there was a logical justification for the Pope's course in the history of the Papal attitude to all secret societies. It began in the Crusades, when the Old Man of the Mountain sent his Assassins, or Hashee- shans, as they were properly called, and from whom we get the modern word, on their secret errands of murder. This was the first oath-bound society with which the Catholic Church came in contact, and it certainly was not of a character to command respect or admiration for the system. The chivalric orders were partly military, partly religious, and partly secret, with the church taken into confidence as to what the secrets were. The Knights Templars were especially organized along lines which, in the modern world, would seem to have all the notes of Masonry, and it was this order which was made the first object of attack. The Templars were disbanded, and their rich priories and preceptories seized after one of the most sensational trials in the long and exciting record of the middle ages. The church has set its face against Masonry ever since that order began to be a power in Europe, chiefly because it was be- lieved to be at the bottom of the great revolutionary upheaval that closed the eighteenth century and shook all the thrones of the Old World so that they still totter. Whether the charge be true or false, none can doubt the uncompromising hostility, nor can any one say that the church is not, from its point of view, justified in its course. Italy has especially been the land of secret political societies. 42 THE DYNAMITE WAR. The Carbonari has been Italian Fenianism, working along very similar lines politically, and differing only because the former antagonized the Pope as a temporal sovereign, and finally con- fused the temporal sovereignty with Catholicity, and delivered its attack indiscriminately against all religion. For this, prop- erly enough, it was anathematized; but Fenianism never opposed religion, nor even menaced it. It was almost exclusively Cath- olic in its membership, and was no more dangerous to the Holy Father, or the interests he is bound to protect, as the vicar of Christ, than the French Chouan, the secret Royalist conspir- acy, which was fostered by the Catholic Church, although, it too, had all the notes of Masonry. As to the Red Internationale, Nihilism, Socialism and An- archism in all their forms and developments, the position of the church is unmistakable and sound. It claims to be the great conservative force of the modern world ; it is the target of attack for all these protean forms of modern social discontent. It is a fair fight, and one in which civilization, as we understand it, must sympathize with Rome. In Italy, as in Ireland, the way of the informer was hard. The penalty of treason was death, and that penalty was inflicted with certainty. Again, putting one's self in the position of a conspirator who was staking fortune and life in what he regarded as a sacred cause, where the fidelity of his associates was an essen- tial to success, common sense would dictate that every means to insure that fidelity would be taken. Men who are playing for their lives are not to be judged by the ethics of a sewing society. If Italian unity was worth fighting for, the revolutionists had in the first place to outlaw themselves. They had to put themselves out of the enjoyment of every right that organized society could give them , and to keep their heads with their own hands, as best they might. It was for this reason that the Carbonari of Italy swore the " apprentices " upon the point of a naked dagger, and, in order to THE DYNAMITE WAR. 43 add more solemnity to the rites of initiation, reproduced part of the great Christian tragedy in their lodge room, the initiate being crowned with thorns and judged by Pontius Pilate. If the oath was betrayed, the name of the traitor was written upon a piece of paper and burned in the lodge room. Thus he was outlawed among the good cousins and his life forfeit. The Hetairia of Greece were sworn in with a Turkish bow- string about their throats, and a brother's dagger pricking the skin over the heart, so that some blood came out. Young Italy clothed the ceremonies of initiation into that conspiracy with many striking solemnities, while on the other hand the Nihilists have no oath at all, although they pursue spies with a grim determination which the Southern nations have never shown. The whole purpose of all these initiatory oaths is of course to provide for the secrecy and the protection of the lodge, and in some instances their terms have been horribly menacing and as horribly carried out. In Ireland this has not been the case. Traitors to no end there have been, but ostracism and execration, rather than death, has been their fate. Carey is the only man in recent times who has been put to death for betraying the people ; and according to one story he was shot by a wandering Irishman who had no mission of death to carry out although, of course, this theory is not the accepted one, nor the one elsewhere printed in these pages. From the serious it is always a short step to the grotesque ; and hence we come from the solemn and" meaning ceremonies of the Italian revolutionists to the fantastic oaths and shibboleths of other orders. Two of the most curious of modern secret societies have had their birth in Ireland. One of them was one of the most impious associations ever devised by misdirected human in- genuity. This was the famous, or rather the infamous, Hell-fire Club, of Dublin, to which no man could belong who had no 44 THE DYNAMITE WAR. killed his man in a duel. The initiation was made interesting by all supposed steps of a descent into hell and an introduction and oath of fealty to Satan, and included such episodes as drinking blood out of a skull, and swearing the oath of allegiance upon a freshly exhumed corpse. The Monks of the Screw were an entirely different society, convivial to the last degree and jolly, from its grand prior to its last entered acolyte. Its purpose was the assembling of the wits of Dublin around the festal board. On gala occasions the members appeared in a costume copied closely after that of one of the most ascetic orders of the church, the Carmelites, and their ceremonies were based upon the Carmelite ritual, which was copied in all its details, save the diet and the drinking, and the carnal and worldly-minded conversation which distinguished the refectory of the Monks of the Screw. CHAPTER IV. Secret Societies in Ireland Veiled Revolution The Croppies' Holes How Fenianism Began McManus' Funeral A Men- acing Demonstration Enrolling the Soldiers O'Donovan Rossa and the Conspiracy Sergt. Brett's Death Allen, Lar- kin and O'Brien Hanged The Manchester Martyrs "God Save Ireland" Parnell Takes up the Work Le Caron on the Clan-na-Gael The Dynamite War Twenty-nine Pris- oners in English .Tails Record of the Explosions Mackay Lomasney and His Fate Sketches of the Convicts. (EVOLT, secret or open, has been the rule in Ireland the normal condition of its politics for seven centuries. There has been a long line of secret societies, one dying out only to be succeeded by another, reaching from the Craobh Rhuadh to the Clan-na-Gael. Ancient history, however, has already been told, and it will be enough here to consider solely the origin, strength and scope of the present revolutionary movement. Rent in Ireland is not rent in America ; it is essentially a tribute exacted from a half-conquered people. It is as much a war levy as the milliards that Germany forced France to pay, and as such do both the Irish tenants and the alien and absentee landlords re- gard it. The Celt would forfeit his title to the respect of the civilized world, did he not fight with all his heart and all his soul and all his cunning against the empire which has despoiled him and mur- dered his kin, now with arms, now with artificial famine. There can be no peace between the two peoples until either Ireland is a desert, or is free. It is war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. There can be neither truce nor compromise. After the abortive insurrection in 1798, it was generally be- lieved that the Irish nation was dead and buried in the ''Croppies' holes" in the southern cities, as the great graves are called where the hundreds of hung rebels were tumbled into one common (45) 46 THE DYNAMITE WAR. sepulture with every mark of obloquy and insult, but which now are the holy places of Ireland. But it was not so. There was a struggle in 1848, suppressed in the usual manner; and finally, in the '60s, a new generation came upon the stage, ready to take up the contest, and pass it on as a sacred legacy to their children. Judge Keogh, whose name will be execrated as long as there are Irishmen to remember his treachery to the people of his blood, and the little group of lesser Judases were supreme in Dublin. The island was pacified. Ireland was again dead and buried. Several of the '48 men, notably Mitchell and Meagher, had escaped to this country; with them was James Stephens, the founder of Fenianism. In 1858 Stephens returned to Ireland, and met there, in Skib- bereen, Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa. The result of their conference was the foundation of the Fenian Society, so named after the Fionna, the Irish military order, whose exploits form the bases of so many of the Old World legends. The Society was to have two wings. Arms and the commissariat were to be found by the Americans, and the Irish society was to complete an organization which would take in all of the island. The church antagonized the movement, and a priest betrayed it. O'Donovan Rossa and a number of the conspirators were found guilty, and sent to penal servitude. In 1861 Terence Bellew McManus died, in San Francisco. He was one of the revolutionists of 1848, and a man whose name was a household word with the Irish of that day. It was deter- mined to make his funeral a great revolutionary demonstration. T. P. O'Connor, in his history of the Parnell movement, says: "The body was conveyed across America with every circum- stance of pomp and solemnity. To Ireland at last came the funeral procession that had thus stalked solemnly across the vast continent and the wide expanse of ocean. Such a spectacle was well calculated to inspire the imagination and to stimulate the pat- riotic passions of the people. The movement was still further THE DYNAMITE WAR. 47 strengthened by the opposition which the funeral demonstration received from the ecclesiastical authorities. Archbishop Cullen continued to the dead conspirator the same hostility which he displayed to the living members of secret societies. To him it soon became known that the funeral was serving as a trumpet- call to gather in recruits for the revolution through the country. He refused to allow the body to lie in state in any of the churches of his diocese. This added feelings of bitter exasperation to all the other forces tending to make the funeral a new departure in Irish politics. The coffin was landed at Queenstown on Oct. 30, 1861, and the funeral took place in Dublin, on Sunday, November 1 0. In this interval the country was excited by a fierce contro- versy between the Fenians and Archbisop Cullen, and the controversy brought recruits in daily larger numbers to the revolutionary organization. At last the funeral wound up in a demonstration which was a fitting close to the preceding events. Fifty thousand people followed the remains; at least as many lined the streets ; and the procession solemnly paused, with un- covered heads, at every spot sacred to the memory of those who fought and died in the good fight against English tyranny ; in Thomas Street, at the house where Lord Edward Fitzgerald met his death, and the church where lie his remains; at the house in High Street where the remains of Wolfe Tone had been laid before the removal for final interment; especially opposite the spot where Robert Emmet was executed. 'In passing the Castle,' says a chronicler of the period, 'the procession slackened its pace to the utmost, and lingered on its way in silent but stern defiance.' Finally, as night closed in, the body was deposited in Glasnevin Cemetery." After this recruits to the new organization poured in in a steady flood. Even the British army in Ireland was affected, and 15,000 soldiers were enrolled in the society. Spies and detectives filled every town in Ireland, and at last the Government struck. On Sept. 15, 1865, the Irish People w as seized, and Luby O'Leary 48 THE DYNAMITE WAR. and O'Donovan Rossa were arrested. Stephens was taken some time later, but managed to escape from Richmond jail. To the horrified amazement of the people Judge Keogh, whose betrayal of the people but a few years back had been the active cause of driving even conservative men into the revolution, was selected as the principal one of the trial judges! Says O'Connor: "The original scandal of appointing such a man to preside over the Fenian trials was aggravated by his conduct of the cases. He bullied the prisoners so flagrantly that at last some even of the English press cried shame, and occasionally he poured upon some unhappy creature he was about to send to penal servi- tude for several years, the plenteous vials of his abundant bil- lingsgate. Meantime the Irish people looked on shocked, enraged, impotent ; naturally loathing with greater cordiality the system which placed infamy upon the bench, and honesty in the dock, that permitted the perjured assassin of their hopes to draft to the horrors of penal servitude the spirits he himself had sum- moned from the vasty deep of a nation's despair." Much of the strength of Fenianism lay among the Irish popu- lation of England, and emissaries were constantly passing between the two countries. It thus came to pass that some of the leaders were arrested and lodged in English jails. One of these, Gen. Burke, was incarcerated in Clerkenwell prison. It was resolved that he should be rescued. The task was entrusted to ignorant hands. A barrel of gunpowder was placed in a narrow street by the side of the wall in that part of the prison where Gen. Burke was supposed to be exercising. The wall was blown down. The prisoner, fortunately for himself, was not in that portion of the prison at all; if he had been, his death would have been certain. A number of unfortunate people of the poorer classes, living in tenement houses opposite the prison, were the victims. Twelve were killed and a hundred and twenty maimed. This occurred on December 13, 1867. A man named Barrett was tried and convicted, and was hanged in front of Newgate prison. 50 THE DYNAMITE WAR. The second event brought out with equal emphasis the hold which the insurrectionary movement had taken upon the Irish in England, and the reality and proportions of the danger to the empire. The conduct of the movement had passed, after the ar- rest of Stephens, and during his absence in America, into the hands of Col. Kelly. In the autumn of 1867 Col. Kelly was in Manchester, at a Fenian meeting. As he was returning home with a companion, Capt. Deasy, the two were arrested on suspicion of loitering for a burglarious purpose. They gave false names, but were soon discovered to be the formidable leader of the con- spiracy and one of his chief lieutenants. The Feaian organiza- tion was at the time extremely strong in Manchester, and a rescue was resolved upon. On Wednesday, Sept. 18, the prison van, while being driven to the county jail at Salford, was attacked at the railway arch which spans Hyde Road at Bellevue. A party of thirty rushed forward with revolvers, shot one of the horses, and the police, being unarmed, fled. An attempt was made to open the door of the van with hatchets, hammers and crowbars, but this failed; and meantime the police came back, accompanied by a large crowd. Sergt. Brett, the policeman inside, had the keys, which some of the party, opening the ventilator, asked him to give up. He refused; a pistol was placed to the keyhole for the purpose of blowing open the lock; the bullet passed through Brett's body, and he fell, mortally wounded. The keys were taken out of his pocket and handed out by one of the female pris- oners. Kelly and Deasy were released, and hurried off into con- cealment, and were never recaptured. Meantime a crowd had gathered, several of the rescuing party were seized and almost lynched; one of them, William Philip Allen, was almost stoned to death. Soon after William Philip Allen, Michael Larkin, Thomas Maguire, Michael O'Brien (alias Gould) and Edward O'Meara Condon (alias Shore) were tried for the willful murder of Sergt, Brett. They were convicted, and all sentenced to be hanged. The trial took place amid a hurricane of public passion THE DYNAMITE WAR. 51 and panic. The evidence was tainted, and was soon unexpectedly proved to be utterly untrustworthy. Thomas Maguire, tried on the same evidence, identified by the same witnesses, convicted and sentenced by the same judges, was proved so conclusively in- nocent that he was released a few days after his trial. Allen and the others declared solemnly that they had not intended to hurt Sergt. Brett. Condon, in speaking, used a phrase that has be- come historic: " I have nothing," he said in concluding his speech, "to regret or take back. I can only say, God save Ireland." His companions advanced to the front of the dock, and, raising their hands, repeated the cry, " God save Ireland." Maguire was released and Condon was reprieved. For some time there was a hope that the breakdown of the trial in the case of Maguire would result in a reprieve in the cases of the other three. But the authorities ultimately decided that the three men should be hanged, and on the morning of Nov. 23, 1867, Allen, Larkin and O'Brien were executed in front of the Salford jail. A short time afterwards their bodies were buried in quick lime, in uncon- secrated ground, within the precincts of the prison. It is impossible, even after the considerable interval that has elapsed, to forget the impression which the event produced upon the Irish people. In most of the towns in Ireland vast multitudes walked in funeral processions through the streets to testify the terrible depths of their grief. Men speak of it to-day with almost the same frenzied bitter- ness as at the moment when it took place. A few days after the execution Mr. T. D. Sullivan wrote the poem with the refrain uttered from the dock, " God Save Ireland ! " and whenever in any part of the globe there is now an assembly of Irishmen, so- cial or political a concert in Dublin, a convention in Chicago, or a parliamentary dinner in London the proceedings regularly close with the singing of " God Save Ireland ! " 52 THE DYNAMITE WAR. THE IKISH "MARSEILLAISE/* High upon the gallows tree Swung the noble-hearted three, By the vengeful tyrant stricken in their bloom ; But they met him, face to face, With the courage of their race, And they went with souls undaunted to their doom. "God save Ireland," said the heroes, "God save Ireland," said they all ; "Whether on the scaffold high, Or the battlefield we die, Oh, what matter, when for Erin dear we fall!" Girt around with cruel foes, Still their courage proudly rose, For they thought of hearts that loved them, far and near; Of the millions true and brave, O'er the ocean's swelling wave, And the friends in holy Ireland ever dear. Climbed they up the rugged stair, Rung their voices out in prayer, Then, with England's fatal cord around them cast, Close beneath the gallows tree Kissed like brothers lovingly, True to home, and faith, and freedom to the last. Never till the latest day Shall the memory pass away Of the gallant lives thus given for our land ; But on the cause must go, Amidst joy, or weal, or woe, Till we've made our Isle a nation free and grand. An amnesty movement for the prisoners in penal servitude was begun, which soon gathered great force. There was a par- liamentary vacancy in the County Tipperary. Denis Heron sought election as a Liberal. The people put up against him O'Donovan Rossa, whose magnificent resistance to the petty tyrannies of his jailers had fired his friends with an enthusiasm THE DYNAMITE WAR. 53 which soon carried him triumphantly to the top of the poll. The Government declared him disqualified as a felon. It is a curious fact that it was the execution of Allen, Larkin and O'Brien, and the exacerbated feelings provoked by it, that determined Charles Stewart Parnell to go into the service of his country. At the close of the American war a great many Irish officers who had fought in the Union Army found themselves ready for any adventure which would come. It was out of this material that the raid on Canada was made up, which was a complete failure, as everybody will remember, much of its ill luck being no doubt due to "Major Le Caron," the English spy, who was one of the Council of War. About this man "Le Caron," or Beach, there will be a good deal to be said later on, but it will be found curious and interest- ing to introduce at this point his account of the origin of the Clan-na-Gael, furnished in his own handwriting to the London Times, and by it printed on May 13, 1887: " The Fenian Brotherhood (or F. B.) was established in America to subsidize and aid the Irish association founded by James Stephens under the title of the Irish Revolutionary Brother- hood (or I. R. B.) The secret history of these two societies would disillusionize all who place a high estimate upon what they are pleased to call the Irish National movement. It is sufficient here to remark that, as the utter hollowness of the Irish conspiracy was exposed by the outbreak of 1867, so the contemptible failure of the Fenian raid on Canada in 1870 decided a number of the principal conspirators in America to separate themselves from the discredited F. B., and to form a new association. These men met in Philadelphia, and there held the first convention of the organization publicly known as the Clan-na-Gael, but more properly called the United Brotherhood. A very transparent cipher was adopted namely, moving on the alphabet one letter The U. B. thus became the V. C., which was for many years the 54 THE DYNAMITE WAR. secret name of the society; the Executive Bureau, as the govern- ing body was termed, became the F. C.; the I. R. B. is mentioned in their reports as the J. S. C., and Ireland is always Jsfmboe. " This society, unlike the F. B. which it superseded, was from its inception secret and oathbound, and its objects are thus set forth in the official printed 'Constitution ' : ' The object is to aid the Jsjti people in the attainment of the complete and abso- lute independence of Jsfmboe by the overthrow of Csjujti dom- ination ; a total separation from that country, and the complete severance of all political connection with it ; the establishment of an independent Republic on Jsjti soil, chosen by the free votes of the whole Jsjti people, without distinction of creed or class; and the restoration to all Jsjtinfo of every creed and class of their natural privileges of citizenship and equal rights. It shall prepare unceasingly for an armed insurrection in Jsfmboe.' Csjujti is, of course, the cipher word for British, and Jsjti for Irish. " The Ninth Convention of the V. C., above referred to, was held at Wilkesbarre, Penn., on Aug. 8, 1879. 'Mr. Jones,' the envoy, was no other than John Devoy, the well-known Fenian leader. There were good reasons for keeping back his report. It is a lengthy and prolix document, giving an account of his movements during a seven months' visit to Europe, and contain- ing statistics of the home conspiracy, which he found to be in a sta f e of utter disorganization. He had been in close and constant communication with the council and officers of the I. R. B., and had also conferred with leading Nationalists unconnected with the society. But for our present purpose two statements in his report alone claim special notice. In the first he called serious attention to the fact that the I. R. B. was taking a position of hostility to the Home Rule movement, then becoming prominent ; and in the second he deplored the impossibility of keeping the farmers in the ranks of the organization, although in prosperous times they were willing enough to pay for firearms. THE DYNAMITE WAR. 55 "Thus Devoy was cautiously endeavoring to prepare the V. C. for that change of front which has since been known as the New Departure. To state his scheme in his own words, in a letter to the Freeman's Journal, he desired that ' a common basis of political action might be arrived at between several sections of the Irish people, then separated by strong differences of opin- ion, but having many objects in common.' Such language, coming from another quarter, would be reasonable and harmless, but in the mouth of John Devoy, the ' envoy' of the American Fenians to the conspirators at home, its meaning is clear. It was an appeal to the Revolutionists and Dynamiters to stand upon a common platform with land reformers and Home Rulers. " The apostle of the New Departure was DeVoy, but Michael Davitt was its prophet. His release from penal servitude had occurred before the V. C. envoy's arrival in Europe, and, grasping the situation at once, he took the lead in the agrarian agitation of 1879. In November of that year, three months after the Wilkesbarre Convention, he founded the Land League; and on Jan. 1, 1880, Mr. Parnell landed in New York to seek American support \for the new movement. The V. C. leaders received him with open arms, promoted meetings for him throughout the States, and prominently identified themselves with him on every platform. " In America the New Departure was triumphant, but the Fenians at home were too dull to appreciate such a policy, and the Land League was constantly exposed to the open hostility of a section of the I. R. B. On one occasion even Mr. Parnell himself suffered rough treatment at their hands. On June 18, therefore, John Devoy addressed to the Freeman's Journal the letter already quoted. It was but the renewal of an appeal he had made eight- een months before in the columns of the same paper." This is an enemy's account of the truth of the Clan-na-Gael, but it is, on the whole, near the facts. 56 THE DYNAMITE WAR. One's appreciation of the good or evil in the great movement depends a great deal on one's point of view, and this is not the place to discuss the ethics of the great conspiracy. These are the results: Twenty-nine Irish revolutionists have been sent from America into English prisons in the last eight years. In almost every in- stance it is known for a fact certain that these victims were be- trayed to the Government against which their attack was to be delivered before they had left the vessel which carried them over. The centers of English information have been in Chicago and New York, but particularly Chicago. In every instance Scot- land Yard was apprised of the name and description of the dyna- mitard long before it was possible that harm could be done, and the half success, from a criminal point of view, of some of the explo- sions was due, not to a lack of espionage and treason on this side of the water, but to the stupidity of the British police. Le Caron's evidence before the Parnell Commission shows how thoroughly the work was done ; and Le Caron was not the most valuable spy in the English service. But two men are known to have completely baffled the detectives, and before the story of the prisoners now in jail is told something may be said of their adventures. P. J. Tynan, the No. 1 of the Phoenix Park assassination, when Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were "removed," is still being sought for all over the world. He disappeared like a political Tascott, and left not a trace behind. It was months before even a photograph of him could be found, so thoroughly had he taken all sorts of precautions, and when the picture was discovered it is said the British Government was forced to pay 1,000 for it. Tynan was a remarkable man. He was a leader of the secret societies in Ireland, a cool and desperate man, whose honesty was admitted, but whose fanaticism in the Irish cause would carry him to any length. Before the Phoenix Park outrage he had already been concerned in wild work in Kerry and York. Nobody knew much about him, not even his associates. He was a THE DYNAMITE WAR. 57 heavy-set man, rather large-faced, with kindly blue eyes, and a great, bushy beard. He was supposed to have served in the French army, and he spoke French better than English. Some months ago the last man that saw Tynan in Dublin told the writer the following story of his escape: "It was after the murder in the park, but before Carey had turned approver, that I met Tynan on D'Olier Street, not far from the bank. We chatted for a minute, when one of the castle detectives sauntered up and said significantly, 'The American mail is in. Have you any idea when the Holyhead boat leaves ?' Tynan turned pale, almost staggered, and walked rapidly away. He was never seen since. That night the police were turning Dublin upside down hunting him, and tfiey have been searching for him ever since. He is probably living quietly in France, although it is said he was seen and spoken to by an old friend in London not more than a month ago." The other successful fugitive is James Moorhead, better known by the nom de dynamite of Thomas J. Mooney. Moor- head with one Terence McDermott managed the explosion at the local Government Board offices at Whitehall, in London, March 15, 1883. He is supposed to have had a hand in the Glasgow outrages which occurred six weeks earlier. Moorhead's own story, or what purported to be his story, was printed in the Amer- ican papers last December. He said that he was sent over by the secret societies on this side for dynamite work, and furnished with money and letters of introduction to the evangels of destruc- tion on the other side of the water. He went to Glasgow and put himself into communication with J. F. Kearney, who controlled the dynamite arsenal. By this man he was provided with large amounts of nitro-glycerine, and after, as he facetiously remarked, touching off the Glasgow Gas Works, he went to Lon- don and blew up the Government Board offices, tried to blow up the Times, and was prevented by the vigilance of the po- lice from attacking the Parliament palace. He coolly read the 58 THE DYNAMITE WAR. papers describing him and offering a reward for his arrest, and in his own good time went to Liverpool, took ship, and came home, the last person he shook hands with being a detective on the ten- der at Liverpool. Moorhead, or Mooney, is now said to be living at 1210 First Avenue, New York. There is no such doubt about the addresses of the other and less lucky dynamitards. The list, as given officially, is as follows : DATE OP SENTENCE. NAME. CRIME. Sentence. 1881. j James McGrath. ) | James McKevitt. f John Tobin. Thomas Walsh. ( Thomas Gallagher. "] J A. G. Whitehead. 1 H. H. Wilson. ^ John Curtin. J f William Tansey. ") 1 Pat Naughton. j Pat Rogerson. j [ James Kelly. {Timo'y Featherstone. ^ Dennis Deasey. 1 Pat Flanigan. Henry Dalton. J Attempt to blow up Liver- pool Town Hall. Illegal posses- sion of nitro- glycerine. Illegal posses- sion of nitro- glycerine. Illegal man'f're of nitro-glycer- ine at Birming- ham and trans- fer of it to Lon- don. Explosional Weston House in Galway. Illegal posses- sion of infernal machines. Life. 20 yrs. 7 yrs. 7 yrs. Life. Life. Life. Life. 14 yrs. 8 yrs. 12 yrs. 2 yrs. Life. Life. Life. Life. 1882. Jan. 31 July 31 1883. May 28 July July 30 THE DYNAMITE WAR. 59 DATE OF SENTENCE. NAME. CRIME. Sentence. Dec. 1 1884. July 29., 1885. March . . May 18. Nov. 18. James McCullough. Thomas Dewanney. Peter Callahan. Henry McCann. Terence McDermott Dennis Casey. Pat McCabe. James Kelly. James Donnelly. Patrick Drum. John Daly. J. F. Egan. Patrick Levy. j J. G. Cunningham. ) \ H. Burton. J J. Wallace, alias Duff. Life. Life. Life. Outrages at Life Glasgow in Jan- Life, uary, 1883. 7 yrs. 7yrs. 7 yrs. 7 yrs. 7 yrs. Illegal posses- Life, sion of infernal 20 yrs. machines. Explosion Mill street bar- 1 yr. racks. H. L. Explosion at Life Tower of Lon Life, don, etc. Murder at oli- 20 yrs. hull. This makes thirty-two men imprisoned for dynamite out- rages, for the conviction of Wallace for the Solihull murder was only brought about by his arrest in one of the criminal conspir- acies. The Solihull murder was a Fenian "removal." Of these thirty-two, two died, and one, Patrick Drum, was released imme- diately after conviction, leaving twenty-nine persons sent to jail to serve out sentences for their share in the murder plot. Some of these sentences have been already ended, but there are still in British jails twenty-two men under punishment for the conspiracy, and it is a curious fact that none of these men have been permit- ted to earn good time or get the indulgence granted to other convicts, if the stories told by their friends be true. 60 THE DYNAMITE WAR. Of the dynamitards two are dead. These are Capt. Mackay Lomasney and Peter Malone, although there is much doubt about the name of this latter. They were killed in the abortive explo- sion at London Bridge about a quarter to six o'clock the evening of Dec. 13, 1884. Neither of the bodies was ever found, and it is supposed that the men and boat were so torn to pieces that nothing but human and other wreckage remained after the prem- ature explosion of the cartridges. Lomasney's widow still lives in Detroit, and it will be remembered that it was the failure to provide properly for her that was one of Dr. Cronin's charges against the Triangle. As to " Malone," if that be his name, nothing is definitely known save that he had been associated for some time with Lomasney, and that the two, going under the name of Marshall, had rented a little shop on the Harrow Road, where some weeks later a lot of nitro-glycerine was found. The record of the outrages is soon given. It runs as follows : RECORD OP THE EXPLOSIONS. 1881. May 16 Dynamite attack on the police barracks at Liver- pool. June 10 Attempt to blow up Liverpool Town Hall. June 14 Explosion at Loanhead in Edinburgh. June 30 Six infernal machines found in cement barrels on the " Malta " at Liverpool. American made. July 2 Two infernal machines of like character and origin found on boai-d the " Bavaria " at Liverpool. September Explosion at the police barracks at Castlebar, Ireland. 1882. March 26 Explosion at Weston House, Galway. March 27 Explosion at Letterkenny. April 2 Attack on police barracks at Limerick. May 12 Attempt to blow up the Mansion House, London. THE DYNAMITE WAP. 61 1883. January 21 Glasgow outrages at Fossil Bridge, Buchanan Street Station, and the gas-works. March 1 5 Explosion at local Government Board offices and attempt to blow up the London Times office. April An infernal machine found at Liverpool. Seizure of a nitro-glycerine factory at Birmingham, conducted by Feather- stone and others. October 30 Outrages on the Metropolitan Railway in London. November Two infernal machines found at Westminster. 1884. January Dynamite found in Primrose Hill Tunnel. February 25 Explosion at cloak-room of London, Brighton r "No." ' "(7. 'Understanding, as you do, that the object of this or- ganization is the freedom of Jsfmboe, will you take our obligation without mental reservation? Answer "Yes" or "No." ' "If satisfactory answers are received, C. shall return and re- port the names, etc., to the S. G., who shall say: "/S>. G. 'Prepare the candidates and present them.' "The C. shall then obtain his sword, retire to the ante-room, and blindfold the candidate. He will then give three knocks at the door, as a signal for his associates to retire, one assistant con- ductor being selected for each candidate, who shall take position on his right. The C. shall direct the march, and shall station himself at the head of the escort. At the entrance door he shall give three knocks with the sword. The door having been opened, the escort shall pass inside, when the door shall be closed. When the escort has advanced three paces, the S. hails the C. abruptly, thus: "/S. 'Halt, who thus intrudes ? ' (Escort halts.) "(7. 'Friends who desire to unite with us in the Cause of Jsfmboe.' THE DYNAMITE WAR. 87 " (to S. G.) * Friends of Jsjti freedom! shall I permit them to proceed ? ' " S. G. ' Advance, friends.' C. < Forward 1 March ! ' " The C. shall lead the escort to the center of the room, and when he has approached to within three paces of the S. G.'s desk, the S. G. shall give one rap, as a signal to halt, the Tap to be repeated by the J. G. The C. shall command ' Halt 1 ' The candidate shall be aligned by the assistant conductors, facing the S. G. C. shall strike the desk with the flat of the sword, and report as follows : C. ' I present to you these friends, who seek fellowship and instruction.' " The 8. G. shall then address the candidates in these words: " S. G. ' FKIENDS : You are now within these secret walls. We charge you never to make known to any one outside these walls any words you may hear spoken, or any acts that may be performed, or any other matter or thing relative to this C'e, even though you decline at this or any other stage of the proceedings of initiation to become a member ; neither must you make known to any person or persons outside these walls the names of any one you may have seen or recognized by his voice. We have all taken a solemn and binding oath, as members of this C'e, which we require you to take before being admitted to light and mem- bership in our order. It is an oath which does not conflict with the duty we owe to God, to our country, or to our neighbors. Are you willing to take this oath ? ' " The candidate or candidates shall answer ' Yes ' or ' No.' [Should a negative answer be given, or should the candidate insist on withdrawing at any time during initiation, he shall be required to take a solemn pledge of secrecy in regard to the C'e and its existence.] Should the answer be in the affirmative, the S. G. shall say to the C. : " 'Conduct our friend to the examiner.' " C., in leading the escort to the chair of the P. G., will act as before the S. G., and report thus : 88 THE DYNAMITE WAR. " ' Friends for instruction ! ' " The P. G. shall then speak as follows : " 'You have come within the walls of our (7e, offering your- self (or selves) for affiliation with us. The men who surround you have* all taken the obligations of our order, and endeavor to fulfill their duties. These duties must be cheerfully complied with, or not at all undertaken. We are Jsjti men, banded together for the purpose of freeing Jsfmboe, and elevating the position of the Jsjti race. The lamp of the bitter past plainly points out our path, and the first step on the road to Freedom is SECRECY. We believe that, destitute of secrecy, defeat shall again cloud our brightest hopes, and, believing this, we shall hesitate at no sacrifice to maintain it. Be prepared, then, to cast aside with us every thought that may impede the growth of this holy feel- ing among Jsjtimfo, for once a member of the Br'd, you must stand by its watchword of SECRECY, OBEDIENCE and LOVE. With this explanation, are you prepared to take our obligation and perform its duties ? " Yes " or " No." ' "The P. G. shall then ask the candidates the following questions : " P. G. ' Are you bound by any oath, obligation or agree- ment to expose to any persons or authority, Anything you may know or learn relative to this order ? Answer " Yes " or ' No." ' " If the answer is correct, that is in the negative, the P. G. shall order the C. as follows: " ' Conduct our friends to the proper officer for obligation.' " After marching in front of the J. G., the C. shall halt the escort, and give two raps with the sword. The S. G. shall then give two raps. The Testament shall then be placed in the right hand, while the J. G. administers the following obligation: " J. G. ' I [name in full] do solemnly swear, in the presence of Almight}' God, that I will labor, while life is left me, to estab- lish and defend a Republican form of Government in Jsfmboe, that I will keep strictly secret the name and everything connected with this C'e from all not entitled to know such secrets ; that I THE DYNAMITE WAR. 89 will obey and comply with the Constitution and Laws of the C'e, and that I will faithfully preserve the funds of the C'e for the Cause of Jsjti Revolution alone, as specified in the Constitution; that I will deem it my special duty and mission to promote and foster sentiments of Union, Brotherly Love and Nationality among all Jsjtinfo; that I take this obligation without any men- tal reservation, holding the same forever binding upon me, and that any violation thereof or desertion of my duty to the Br'd, is infamous and meets the severest punishment So HELP ME GOD.' " J. G. ' Kiss the book. Admit the brothers to light and fraternity.' " The Assistant Conductors then retire ; the C. faces candi- dates towards the S. G-. " Brothers all raise their right hand and say : * We are all witnesses to the obligation you have taken.' O. 'Keep it as you value your life.' J. G. 'Keep it at the hazard of your .life.' " The J. G. will then address the candidates as follows: " 'BROTHERS : You have to-night, of your own free will, sworn to be true to Jsfmboe, to the C'e, to the race; that oath must be kept in letter and spirit. While you respect it those around you will be your friends. Let your conduct then be such that we shall have no reason to regret admitting you this night to our