THE VICEROY IN THE NORTH.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 17, 15 August 1884, Page 19

THE VICEROY IN THE NORTH.

("Dublin Freeman, June 28.) * The Viceregal visit to Belfast terminated on Friday with the ceremony knighting the Mayor. Sir David Taylor's fellow-townsmen will readily join in congratulating him upon the well-merited dignity. He is personally very popular, and both as a merchant and a magistrate has won a high place in the Northern capital. It is no fault of Sir David's that he is the head and guide of a Corporate body which embodies and perpetuates that purely sectarian spirit which is the bane of social health in Belfast and the Northern province. As Mayor of Belfast, Sir David Taylor presides over the deliberations of a Town Council whose sign might reflect the old Bandon inscription— •« Turk, Jew, or Atheist May enter here, but not a Papist." We hear a good deal of the rapid strides of civilisation in Belfast, bat in the resolute combination of the party with which Sir David Taylor is allied to exclude from the Council Chamber a single representative of the seventy or eighty thousand Catholics of Belfast there is a striking evidence of the tenacity with which the dominant party clings to the mere narrow-mindedness and bigotry of unenlightened primitive states. It is hardly Sir David Taylor's fault that he is the official figure-head of the exclusive faction, bat it is difficult to allude to the bead without taking ' cognisance of the body. Earl Spencer on Friday utilised very fully the few hours of the forenoon which he had in Belfast. Several addresses were presented to him at Ormiston, to which he made brief replies, and, accompanied by the Countess, he spent some time ia the showyard of the North East Agricultural Society. It was observed that the Viceregal party were better received than on the previous day, and that the display of fla^s and street decorations was much more general. This ia possibly due to the " Rale Britannia " spirit of the speech which his Excellency delivered at the banquet on Wednesday night, and to his civil, if cold, acknowledgment of the written rhapsodies of Lord Arthur Hill and ;Mr. Cashier Cobain on Thursday. Otftlie whole, as far as we can see, the Lord Lieutenant has no reason to be dissatisfied with his trip to the North. It is to his credit that he was not deterred from the visit by the windbags of Sandy -row, and the sequel has shown him how inflated and utterly contemptible they are. Tbe lesson is a useful one for future guidance. Although the addresses presented to His Excellency yesterday were from purely religious bodies, it will be noticed that their language for the most part was not of the mildest and most subdued character. The Rev. Mr. Kane himself could scarcely command a more offensive vocabulary than that of the rev. gentleman who read the felicitations of the Presbyterian College and of the Belfast Presbytery. Earl Spencer may not have meant to utter a gentle hint at the peculiar style in which Northern religions bodies express their admiration for law and order, but his alluaion in his addresses to " immoderate language " as a thing to be avoided might be so construed. Before taking his departure Earl Spencer expressed to tbe Mayor the sincere satisfaction and pleasure which the Viceregal party had derived from the visit.