"THE LIMERICK INSULT" TO THE QUEEN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume 26, Issue 349, 26 December 1879, Page 17

"THE LIMERICK INSULT" TO THE QUEEN.

The Limerick Reporter, referring to the statement that the Lord Lieutenant had called for explanations regarding the alleged hissing of the Queen at the Limerick banquet, says :— " We are not aware how true the statement is, or whether it contains any ingredient o£ truth at all. We do know that the first toast on the list of toasts at the banquet on the Bhannon to Mr. Parneil, M.P., and the city and county members, was the Queen, and that it was received with loyalty and respect, the company standing ; and that if there was a " hiss " it was of so very a contemptible a character that no notice whatever was taken of it. How the misrepresentation has got into the newspapers that the health of the Queen was tmsed, we are not aware. There was more than an average n amber of reporters at the banquet, and we do not know that any one among them would wilfully misrepresent, or lend himself to discredit Mr. Parneil, the city and county members, and the character and conduct of the meeting altogether. A " hiss " could no more be prevented were it given, where there was a disposition or design on the part of any disloyal person or spy or disturber to hiss, than any other contretemps, or insult or outrage ; and we feel also quite well assurred that any demonstrative attempt to show that the meeting was disloyal in tone or tendency in object or in purpose, would have been resented there and then in the most emphatic manner possible. The braying of a donkey does not spoil a concert, nor is it minded by the musicians ; nor does an orator stop to inquire because an uproarous fellow below in the crowd utters a discordant cry. No ; the object is to discredit Mr. Parneil and his friends — to make a Marat, a Danton, a, John Martin, a John Mitchel, a Roasa, or any other Fenian of him, and to frighten him and his friends, if that can be done, from their honest and legitimate course. " Mentez !" •' Mentez 1" •' Mentez 1" was one of the revolutionary prescriptions that brought Louis XVI. to the block. Calumnari fortiter is another prescription, which we are certain has not been lost on those who wish to make a history in accordance with their own ideas. There were men with Mr. Parneil more loyal by far than the crowd of liars and calumniators who combine to put him down, and to destroy the object of his friends ; and they scorn the transparent art which would convert the possible hoarse dissent of some obscure individual into an overt act of treason, or sedition, and make honest men responsible fer the alleged manifestations of mayhap a spy or informer, a snake in the grass, or a pretended friend.