THE O'CONNOR MEMOIRS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20302, 9 July 1929, Page 8

THE O'CONNOR MEMOIRS.

REMINISCENCES OF "T.P."

LAST WORDS TO PARNELL.

"I HOPE YOU ARE WELL."

MRS. PARNELL'S CLOSING DAYS.

(Copyright.) No. LXXI.

I havo little to add to the story [of Parliell and the Homo Rule question] and certainly tho time has passed when one should enter into the controversy as to whether tho opponents or the defenders of Parnell took the wiser course for the lutiire of Ireland. On my return from America I went to Ireland a very short timo before Parnell*s Seath. I was soon confronted with the certainty of having to join in a struggle which sickened me. As my boat approached tho harbour I saw a friend of mine whom 1 recognised as the representative of an Irish paper, and immediately I was interviewed for an expression of my views. I si'id as little as I could beyond stating that my views remained the same as those I had expressed in America. Shortly afterwards 1 went down to my own constituents, and "addressed a large * meeting there. 1 hopo I may be forgiven for repeating that in expressing my dissent frpr.i the courso of Parnell I did not allow myself to say anything personally insulting to him. There was a small minority in the meeting who had remained with Parnell, many of them afterwards my warm friends and supporters—but the meeting was practically unanimous. "I Never Spoke to Him Again." I met Parnell only once after this meeting face-to-face, passing through one of the halls of the House of Commons. I could not resist going up and shaking hands with him. I was immediately struck by tho extraordinary change that had come over his appearance. . . The face was now bloated and pallid. I cannot say that his reception of me was cordial. I said to him, "I hope you are ,well," and his reply was cold and resentful. "Better than you," he said. This was enough: I never spoke to him again, we sat in the .House of Commons apart and without noticing each other. Thore were some scenes there which increased my anguish over the whole tragic situation. He was avoided by some and approached by others of his now divided party There were scenes in which he was attacked by Mr. Healy personally and by Mr. Sexton on some rather wild proposals he had made with regard to the settlement o? the land question. Ho listened eagerly, and got up once or twice to attempt a correction of some of the criticisms in Mr. Sexton's speech; but on questions of figures and facts he was an unequal combatant with such a master of facts as Mr. Sexton was. The conflict, howover, was not fierce in its temper. It was different in tho collision between him and Mr. Healy. Parnell spoke with fierce violence; one could scarcely recognise in thin man hissing out his words that serene and frigid figure that Parnell had previously shown. Mrs. Parnell's Last Years. I return to the other chief figure in this terrible and tragic love story. Mrs. Parnell survived her husband nearly 30 years. It may be said with truth that when Parnell died, so far as her intelligence was concerned, his wife died too. She varied from timci to time, but her mind was never quite normal. Soon after his death her state became so acute that she had to go to a nursing home, and remained there for two years. I have heard one of her relatives give a thrilling description of how she would get up in the middle of the night in a state of wild alarm and call 'on them to go downstairs to the hall, Where, as she thought, Parnell and O'Shea were attempting to kill each other. In addition, Mrs. Parnell was always beset by pecuniary difficulties, and these were the direct consequence of the scandal of tho divorco case. By tho will of her devoted aunt, she was the sole heiress to that lady's magnificent fortune of £200,000, but her position bad been so weakened that heirs direct or remoto immediately began to make their claims. Lawyers of the highest standing had to be employed on the one side and the other, until ultimately the costs of the litigation amounted to many thousands of pounds. The end of it was that the claims of some 25 relatives had to be satisfied before Mrs. Parnell's claim could bo met. Hidiculous Generosity. Mrs. Parnell was not a woman who could ever be trusted with the management of money. Though she had quite enough to keep her in comfort for the remainder of her days, it somehow slipped through her hands, and the first cause of this was tho ridiculous generosity of her character. She could not refuse assistance in any case which might appeal to her sympathy. One remarkable instance of this, incredible if one did not know it to be true, was her treatment of a solicitor who had robbed her of many thousands of pounds. Wlien asked to make some attempt to get back tho largo amount of money of which she had been robbed—or at least to join in the prosecution by the many other clients whom her dishonest solicitor had treated similarly, Mrs. Parnell adopted quite a different course. She actually irisistijd on putting up a sum of about £3OOO to help in defending the solicitor! Her efforts wero in vain, however, for he was sentenced to five years' penal servitude for defrauding another ' la<>y, aTid he was struck off tho rolls. It is needless to say that Mrs. Parnell never got either tho money of which she had been robbed nor any of the £3OOO sbe had contributed to her despoiler's defence. Another method in which Mrs. Parnell managed to waste her fortune was her mania for taking new houses, a mania -which was partially shared by Parnell in his lifetime. Mental Afflictions. At least choc there were bankruptcy proceedings against Mrs. Parnell and her goods wero put lip for auction. One of these incidents remains in my memory from certain insignificant facts. It used to be the custom in Ireland to present addresses to the popular favourites of the Parnell epoch. As I write these lines I am looking at one in my own study that was presented to me. Theso addresses sometimes wero fairly pretty—as a rule they were illustrated in a modest and simple way. but. on the wholo they give an impression of the moderate means of tho people who presented them. It was a manifestation of the thoroughness with which the creditors of Mrs. Parnell pursued her that a trifling little thing like this should be included in tho goods that were seized. Of course, this poor little romnant of Parnell's went for a few Shillings. I havo heard different stories of the state of Mrs. Parnell's mind during the years that, elapsed between Parnell's death and her own. Sho had, in spite of all her troubles, a certain strength of will which carried her through her many misfortunes, and. above all, through the death of the man to whom she gave such concentrated devotion. On the whole, however, during most of the years she was fairly normal except for an interval when she became mentally unbalanced. Mrs. Parnell's condition became so bad that one of her sons-in-law, who was a surgeon specialist of considerable repute in Brighton, where ho practised, had to advise her to bo placed in an asylum; thero she remained for two years under treatment. Like so many other bereaved people, she began to toy with spiritualism. She used to imagine that she heard tho voico of Parnell and carry on long conversations with him. [Mrs. Parnell died on February 5, 2921. In 1914 she gave to the world Parnell's letters, etc., the book being entitled "Charles Stewart Parnell; His Lovt Utory and Political Life.] (To be concluded to-morrow.)