EXTRAORDINARY SCENE AT ONE OF PARNELL'S MEETINGS.

Evening Post, Volume XXII, Issue 97, 22 October 1881, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY SCENE AT ONE OF PARNELL'S MEETINGS.

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? Mr. Parnell proceeded from Strabane to Derry on 28th August, where he attended a meeting in the Corporation Hall. Before the commencement of the proceedings Capt. Claudius Berosford, of the Royal Engineers, who had been aide-de-camp to the Duke of Abercorn when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, entered the hall, and ascending the platform, addressed the large audience that filled the building. Ho said : — " Gentlemen of Derry, citizens of Derry, I would not take the trouble of speaking to you except for very eerioua reasons. My brother, my eldest brother, is lying at the point of death. My father, therefore, cannot come here. All I want of you is that yon will maintain the honour of the city of Dorry, and do not let agitators " At this point of tho address a most extraordinary scene occurred A yonng man from among the audience suddenly sprang upon the platform, and sejzed Captain Beresford by the throat. Amid the shouts of the people and the most intense excitement he attempted to drag him off ths platform by main force. Captain Beresford resisted, and struck his assailant heavy blows with a stick which he carried ; but others of the audience rt.shing forward and joining in the attnek. Captain Beresford, although he struck right and left with his Btick, waß at length overcome, dragged to the ground, and surrounded by a rough and angry crowd, who seemed inclined to show him little ineicy. At this juncture Mr. W. Eoddy, of D^rry, in^ terferod, and endeavoured to persuade thir pejjjle to release Captain Bereaford. Tho pohco had by this timo gained an entrance into the hall, ard under their protection Captain Boresford made his departure, amid the groans and hooting of the people. Mr. Parnell, who was recoivod with cheers, tub*sequently addressed the meeting, and said that noble men of the Lish race had been willing to go to prison and penal servitude for the sake, not of themselves, but of the tenant farmers and labourers of Ireland, and with the knowledge that they were adva. cinq the timo when Ireland would regain her nationhood and the right to make her own lawf on her own soil. .^