Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 27, 3 April 1891, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From the National Papers.)

Thk Earl of Zetland, Viceroy of Ireland, and Mr. Balfour, Chief Secretary, have begun to pass around the hat to obtain funds to purchase food and clothing for the Buffering portion of the population of Ireland. Mr. Balfour now thinks that he sees a favourable chance of catting into the popular feeling. But the country will be disappointed if the indignation of the people fails to find unequivocal expression. If the distress is so bad as to call for tbe action of the Government, then it is by tbe Government that it ought be relieved, and not by the begging-box.

Most Rev. Doctor O'Callaghan, Catholic Bishop of Cork, has given an emphatic rebuke to tbe supporters of Parnell. It is usual in Cork, Dublin, and other Irish cities, for the Mayor, when a Oath olic, to attend Mass in Btate on tbe first day of his term of office. On each occasions the Mayor, arrayed in his robes of office and accompanied by several uniformed subordinates, is received at the main door of tbe Cathedral by the bishop and a number of the clergy in their sacred vestments, and escorted to the pews set apart for the municipal digDVtaries. This year Bishop O'Callaghan has refused to give any such official recognition to Mayor Horgan of Cork, the reason being that the mayor has publicly taken the side of Parnell. Bishop O'Callaghan is a genuine Nationalist and Home Baler, and his sympathies and support are of course with tbe majority of tbe Irish party.

Timothy Healy and Arthur O'Connor addressed a meeting in Longford County on January 18. Shortly after the meeting began tbe speakers' platform collapsed. Mr. Healy was severely shaken np, but nobody was seriously injured. In consequence of tbe accident the meeting was adjourned, but the speech-making was soon resumed. Mr. Healy, in his address, accused the Parnell i tea of having sawn the prop with the intention of killing their opponents. He said Mr. Parnell was fonder of sawing planks than of sleeping thereon [referring to the plank beds upon which political prisoners are obliged to sleep in the gaols]. The Government police were backing Parnell in order to stimulate violence and to discredit Ireland. Mr. Healy Baid that when the Parnellites awoke from their dreams he would befriend them all except Parnell, who had brought all this misfortune upon Ireland. He himself wonld not tolerate Parnell'e leadership, either covert or open. Parnell was Ireland's enemy, and would ultimately lead the Orangemen. Mr. Healy finally said that if Mr. Fitzgerald (Parnellite), member of Parliament for Longford, South Division, would resign his seat, he himself, being member of Parliament for Longford North, would also resign, and contest Mr. Fitzgerald's seat with him. At Armagh, Archbishop Logue, of Armagh, warned his congregation against the Independent Parnell Club.

Father James McFadden, the Patriot priest of Qweedore, County Donegal, Ireland, who for a generation nas been known and honoured for bis devotion to tbe Irish cause and the oppressed Irish tenantry, has written a letter to the Robert Emmet Branch (Patrick, Scotland) of the Irish National League of Great Britain, in which, referring to the Parnell crisis, he says :— " Touching the political crisis in Ireland, you will be glad to learn that I am dead against the late leader of the Irish party. The feeling in Donegal, in Ulster, and, indeed, in all Ireland, is in the same direction. The result of the Kilkenny election shows how the feelinp of well-balanced and thoughtful minds runs. We here feel veiy strongly on tbe scandalous and disgraceful life led by Mr. Parnell whilst he was regarded as a man of high social and political integrity. He was a sad fraud, and his brazen absence of common shame and decency i 3i 3 disgusting to every one. His scandalous conduct since he came to Ireland completes his downfall. I am greatly pleased that you have taken the right view of the situation in Patrick. Every rightthinkiog man is with you in your view. After a short time Mr. Parnell will find bis proper level, and very probably he will be allowed to remain there. He is ringing his death-knell, and will be Tery soon forgotten. The cause of truth and justice will go on without him, The Irish priests and the Irish people faithfully guard the interests and the honour of Ireland, and will steadily march forward in glorious triumph to final victory."

Archbishop Croke, in sending a cheque for £5 to the fund started by the Cork Examiner in aid of the family of the late Rev. R. O. N. Anderson, Rector of Drinagh, writes :—": — " I see by this day's Examiner that a fund is being raised in Cork and elsewhere for the family of the late Rector of Drinagh, the Rev. Mr. Anderson, who for some years before his death had been cruelly ill-treated and even boycotted by certain members of his ilock, because he had the courage to break away from the bulk of his class and ora^r and declare for Home Rule I fully participate in the fteling expressed in the correspondence which appears in your columns that Mr. Anderson's family should not be allowed to suffer want or endure humiliation because of the patriotic stand made by lam in favour of the n o 'h aof hia country,

and I am specially pleased to share in this benevolent movement to befriend a Protestant family in distress, since by doing so, along with discharging one of the corporal works of mercy, I shall be bringing balm to the generous spirit and sympathetic heart of Mr. Charles Stuart Parnell, and allaying in so far those painful apprehensions so recently entertained by him regarding the future treatment of our dissenting brethren in Ireland under a Home Bule Government. He poured forth his sad forebodings on thia subject in the speech he delivered, I think '*n Tralee, wherein he is reported to have said that as a result of the action taken generally by Irish priests in the recent dispute, especially during the Kilkenny election campaign, guarantees should he given to Irish Protestant families scattered throughout the country that they would not be injured in property or sentiment when Ireland recovers the right to rule herself. Mr. Parnell is the last man alive who should entertain or give expression to so foul and baseless a calumny on the Catholic people of Ireland, who together with the priests and bishops eight years ago presented him, a professing Protestant, with a money test amounting to nearly £40,000, that is to say he has been in receipt of nearly £5000 a year from the Irish people for the last eight years, and I now put the question to him and his political adherents whether it would be possible for him to realise for himself such a sum as that or anything approaching to it in any legitimate calling ; and furthermore, whether, admitting that his services have been jjreat and his labours considerable in the National cause, he has not been ouper-abundantly paid for them by money alone, to say nothing of his political influence and patronage."

While Mr. Justin McCarthy is enjoying his lettered ease and newly-acquired political distinction in dignified retirement at Cheyne Gardens, Chelsea, Mr. Parnell is taking time by the forelock and is out on tbe war path, stumping the country. He has just been campaigning in Tralee and Athlone, delivering a couple of addresses at each place, and firing off short speeches from the carriage windows en route, like an oratorical franc tireur. The Tralee speech was full of the old fire— bitter, biting, and bellicose. He boasted that he was no " mere Parliamentarian," and said the English radicals knew they had in him as leader of the party and the nation a man who knew his business a good deal better than they did, and who is determined to submit to no dictation from Englishmen. This he qualified by saying he waa perfectly willing to regard English public opinion where it is just and well informed, and where it has reference to Bubjects of English or Imperial interest end concern, but not when it is a question which omy concerns Ireland. This was merely saying in other words what Mr. Gladstone himaelf said many years ago in Scotland, that Ireland should in future be governed according to Irish ideas.

The Irish Belief Fund now amounts to over £20,000. The destitution is severest in the West coast, with which communication ia kepi up by steamers specially procure 1 for the purpose by the Irish Government. Relief works on a large Bcale are in course of construction on the Western seaboard, upon which 35,000 men will be employed. There are at present 3,500 labourers employed in the light railways, and 2,000 more will be engaged within a fortnight. The Viceroy speaking at the College of Physicians on Monday eveoing appealed to tbe clergy of all donations for co-operation and support in relieving the poor. The chairman of the Westport Board of Guardians says only for the private charity of priests and others they would have had deaths from starvation. The Rev. T, J. Reedy, CO., Killawalla, has brought under the notice of the Castlebar Onion the desperate state of the people in the mountainous districts. The large peninsula between tbe Bays of Bantry and Dunmanus, county Cork, which is about thirty miles in length and six in breadth, is seriously affected, so is Whiddy Island, a large tract of country around Glengariife, extending eastward as far as Keimaneagh and Gougane Barra, and westward and southward to Ardrigole and Ca9tletown, along the seacoast as well as the district running out to the Mizen Head. The scenes to be witnessed at the meetings of the Bantry Board of Guardians day after day are most distressing — men, women, and children, demanding work or bread. The relief list has assumed enormous dimensions.

At a meeting of the Royal Irish Academy on Monday, January 25— the Rev. Dr. Haughton, SF.T.CD, presiding— Professor D. J. Cunningham, M.D., read a papsr on the skeleton of the Irish giant, Cornelius itfagrath — a cisc of so-called acromegale." Tae giant was born in Tipperary in 1734, and died in May, 1760. His parents were in no way remarkable for thiir stature, nor were any other children of the family tall. In July, 1702, according to an Irish newspaper record, he was exhibited in Cork and drew crowds of people. According to this authority he then measured 6 feet 8} inches, and had grown to this height in less than one year from somewhat over 5 feet, lie was subsequently exhibited in Bristol, London, Paris, and other places, and on his return to Ireland he was found to measure 7 feet 8 inches without shoes. His skeleton wa3 secured for the museum of Trinity College. Professor Cunningham quoted from some of the advertisements of the period concerning Magratb, according to one of which— the London Advertiser— Magrath was t"ie only repredenta lye of tt v i<j anaeat and magnificent x«nt9 of the kingdom

and possessed the truest and best proportioned figure eyer Been. His height was variously estimated at from 7ft. Sin. to Bft. 6in ; but Professor Cunningham, from a careful examination of the skeleton, believed his height to have been 7ft. 2Jin. ; and as regards bi9figure f there could be m> doubt that it was a case of so-called acromegale— an undue development of certain portions of the anatomj — to wit, in this case, abnormal size of the hands, feet, and lower jaw, which pro* jected greatly below the upper, and &\eo of the pitisitary fossa and J body, which must Lave projected mto the orbital cavity, while the j head itself was not in equipoise with tha vertebral column, and in this respect resembled the negro bead. Professor Cunningham exhibited parts of the skeleton of the giant, and mentioned that some former custodian of the bones had for some reasons best known to himself given them a coat of paint and two coats of varnish. •' One who Knew Him," writes in United Ireland, January 31 : — There is one spot in historic Newry which has an abiding interest for the Irish people : it is the old Meeting House Green in the High street— the quaintly picturesque graveyard in which John Mitchel ia buried. A sad pcane was witnessed there on Saturday last when the remains of Mr. William M. Mitchel, the dear brother William of the " Gaol Journal " pages, were laid bebide those of the grea* patriot in the plot of ground in which are also interred the father and mother and other members of that fast-disappearing family. John Mitchel is interred in the principal tomb ia the plot alongside his father and mother ; the family of Mr. Hill Irvine, of Dromolane, have the next tomb ; beside it a new granite slab records tie death of a sister of Mitchel ; the third space now embraces all that was mortal of William Mitchel, though the stone which marks it tells in simple language the story of th»t other career with which Mr. Wm. Dillon has bo recently made us minutely acquainted. The words are slightly worn away through the action of the weather. They are — In Memory of John Mitchel, Born November 3, 1815, Died March 20, 1875. After twenty-seven years of exile for the Bake of Ireland hi: returned with honour to live among his own people, and he re*ts with his father and mother in the ad]oining tomb. By the removal of Wm. Muchel, Irehn 1 his lost a true an 1 noble son. That he was no ordinary ma'i the vast demonstration of sympathy with Mrs. Jo'm Martin, Lii sister on Saturday sufficed to indicate. Mr. I'arnell was sp cially icpicfcnted at his gravL-siue. As a scientist Mr. Mi chel contributed to thj world's riches by his inventions, an I his townsmen were co.iocious of bestowing well mente 1 honour when tuey elo:tel him tin tirat Present of the Newry Literary an 1 Scientific Society. His scholarship was ul-doubt-'d. He was sixty- me years of age.