MR O'KELLY, M.P., HOME RULER.

Evening Star, Issue 7752, 25 October 1888, Page 4

MR O'KELLY, M.P., HOME RULER.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir,—The Irish member of Parliament arrested some time ago under the Crimes Act is a remarkable character, and has led a life of thrilling adventure. He shared the disastrous French campaign in Mexico ; and though taking no part in the Cuban rising, he was arrested as a " suspect," tried, and convicted as a spy, and sentenced to death by the Spanish authorities, being on more than one occasion actually taken out to be shot. Liberated from imprisonment in Spain, he afterwards took part in the campaign against Sitting Bull in America. We next hear of him at Dongola, making his way to El Obeid. to interview the Mahdi. This part of O'Kelly's career is a curious instance of the amenities of politics. At that time Mr Gladstone was imprisoning the Irish members. O'Kelly had done his six months' in Kilmainham with Parnell and John Dillon, and there is little doubt that the refusal to permit him to go to the Mahdi arose from a suspicion in Downing street that he was the bearer of a message from,the Irish members hostile to England. However this may be, he was certainly removed from the British camp at Assouan. Personally, O'Kelly is a man of warlike build, square, heavy, and of determined, soldierlike expression ; but his manners are courtly and his disposition amiable. By the way, the lion, gentleman is the inventor of a new type of torpedo.—l am, etc., Jack Hinton*. Dunedin, October 25.