Dublin Notes.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 21, 20 September 1895, Page 21

Dublin Notes.

(From contemporaries.)

Mb Justin McOabthy, the well-known leader of the Irish Party, was born in Oork, where he served his rquireship to journalism in connection with the Examiner. Afterwards he removed to Liverpool, and then to London, where, after some time, he became editor of the Morning Star, a Liberal and Radical jonnal of considerable influence, but now defunct. Mr McCarthy transferred hia services to the Daily Newt, for which he has written leading articles for many years, and is still a contributor. Mr McCarthy has written many novels, the best known of which are, " A Fair Saxon," " Dear Lady Disdain," and "Donna Quixote." The Irish leader 'is a man ot wonderful mamory, and of the most varied koowledge. He Writee a dear, limpid English, which has made his " History of Our Own Timea" as delightful reading as a romance. Mr McCarthy is following up this vein by a new " History of the Four Georges." As a apeaker Mr McCarthy is hardly at his best, although his matter is •lwaya interesting, and his points forcible. In private iife he is a brilliant conversationalist, and a man ot charming manner. In July. 1866 a danger menaced the township of Danville, in Canada, which threatened more deaths than are exacted by many a pitohed battle. A van containing two thousand pounds of gunpowder had caught fire from an tngine spark, and was smouldermg towards an awful explosion. People left their honses when the news was spread about-with that lightening rapidity whicb ghastly newa ever has, It aeemed certain that ere many minutes had passed a , shock would occur, compared with which the most terrible storm would be as child's play, and which would hurl into nothingness life far and near. Every moment might come the leap of flame, the hideous roar, and then-tben— that ghastly dew of what had been linng, sentient, men and women falling npon scared onlookers, of whom some would be for ever deaf, and others helpless,, gibbering f-ightened idiots. Fortunately, there was with the consignment of powder a sergeant's guard of the Rifle Brigade, and in that gnard was a man prompt and brave to do and dare all. The van had, directly the fire was noticed, been detached from the tram and run into a siding. Timothy O'Hea ran to it, opened the door, ar.d hunted •bout amidst the burning wood till he found where the danger originated. This discovered, he hurried to a tank, obtained water, and then, when any moment might have hurled him into eterni y, with •teady hand and ready biain, proceeded to drown the fire, and ■ucceeded. O'Hea probably tboueht little c f the grandeur hs had done, but hiß efficers, his countrj , and his Sovereign did, and be took his place amongst me heroes of tha land, the wearers of the Victoria Gross. Some surprise was manifested at the Horns Secretary iv Lord Salisbury's last Cabinet n« reciving a portfolio in toe preee it Ministry. Bat the Ri-h; Hog Henry Matthews is compensated by being raised to the peerage-the first exercise which the new Premier has made of his peermaking powers. The new lord is a Catholic, but this bas not prevented him from defending ihe English Ch'uich Establishment and patting Lord Salisbury on the back when atta-k-irg the priests and people of Ireland. He is a renegade Home Ruler also, and when he first took up politics was described by the London Tijnes as "a cross b. tweeo a F-nian aod a Tory." He first entered the House of Commons as member for the Irish borough of Dungarvan on advanced Nationalist principles. He ous'ed from that constituency Mr C. Barry, Q U., (now one of the Irish Lords Juhtices) on the grounds that Mr B.rry had, in the exercise of his profession •t the bar, prosecuted prisoners fcr Fenianism 1 When in 1870 O'Donovan Rossa, then a convict in prison, was elected a member for County Tipperary, the House of Commons decided to annul tha election and ordered Vie issue of a new wri'. In seconding an ameodment, which askei for a committee to examine precedents for Rossa's case, Mr Matthews said " he looked upon the election of Mr O'Dono. van Bossa as beine no mo c than an expression of the passionate sympathy felt in Ireland for the Fenian and political prisoners- a sympathy which had arisen, iv part, from a sinctre notion that they were patriots, and partly from the impression that they had endured great sufferings." snnce the da 7 a Mr Matthews got into the Honse of Commons, partly on the Fenian and partly on the Nationalist ticket, he has sa-lly retrogressed. The Tunes was right in i>s summing up of his character. Mr Mathews was not veiy popular us a Cabinet Minister. The National Rerun- aicues for the re-establisbmint of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland. It suggested that to each of the 1091 parishes £150 might be given a year, £500 each to the twenty. Sevan bishops, and £300 each to a hundred higher officials. Under the scheme the people should have legal right to the gratuitous perormance of marn-ige and other ie>it;iuus rues for which fees are now charged. The writer argues that the great party which supports the endowed Churches in Englani and Scotland ought to be prepared not only to defend thea_> existing institution**, but to go further and j

to endow the church of tha great majority of the Irish people Writing on the above subject the British Weekly says :— "The Spectator, which ia by far the ablest and moat influential of the «££? . n ? Q *} J° arn * lB ' entirel 7 •*«"* " *o the statesman, ship aod wisdom of this proposal and says that it it were seriously proposed by a Unionist Government and heartily accepted by the Iriah Ohurcb, it would be extremely difficult for those who vote for Home Rule to refuse their assent. To do so might, indeed probably wonld, mean the destruction of the political hopes of the Gladstonians. The Guardian, which represents the mam body of the Church of England, has repeatedly expressed similar view*, and we do not sac how establishments are to be pern*o***l/******** ° n "y other principle. If Episcopacy is to be established m England and Preabyterianism in Scotland, it follows that Roman Catholicism must be establißhed in Ireland. There iano knowing what the attitude of the Boman Catholic Church in Ireland may be. It gave a late and somewhat reluctant support to Home Rule, which has not as yet been withdrawn. But in the event of the Home Rule cause meeting with a severs defeat it is quite possible the church might compromise with the Unionists for a bribe of this kind in which case the question will immediately become one of practical politics. Wherever (writes Mrs Lynn Linton) the true Irish lady-girl or I woman is, there is the atmosphere of purity, of refinement ot feminine grace and sweetness. Fond of the open air, and for the most part a perfect howewoman, she can subdue bar roving pro De n. sities, into the gentlest home-staying practice when occasion demands She can nurae her sick friend-be the right hand of her disabled' fatber-take the cares of housekeeping off her overweighted motherbring up, as a fiecond mother herself, her orphaned nieces-marry the man she lovea, resolute .0 make a good wife, a good housemistress a good mother-and all the while she never loses her charm, and is never anything but what she was in the beginniag-frank, natural pare, and modest, « with no nonsense about her," as men say-a phrase that some imes iocludes certain undesirable characteristicsand without one trait of fastnes*, bo'dneas, or insurgency Anyone going over to Ireland must be struck by the quality of the Irish lady -maid or matron. There is a certain moral perfume about hen which we in England have unhappily gr- a tly lost. They remind one of ourselves of fifty years ago, when certain mbjee'. which are now freely diseased before and by gins were then scarce spoken of below the breath between «, couple of hardy matrons, and wheu girls did not pry into matters witb wbich they have nothing to do There is the same delicate reserve among the Irish ladies as used to be amon- ours-lvee ; and if im * we re to speak to an unmarried woman of twenty.fi ve or so of ihicgs which English pirlsof leas than eighteen will broach of their own accord, the chances are she would not understand vn the first pi c-, and if she did, ,t would be to mortal , Hence and estrangement. In In Und, too, mothers and daughters keep more together than ia the modern faalion among ourselves Chappronaee even ,n country p'a^s, is not dispe.sed with ; end the mother re' mains h* friend and comr-au-oa. and is not shuated as th a nuisance nor ritfi daß ,he tyrant of our latest theory of feminine revolt The home mfli-nce being strong over her life and ondnct-her mind uncontatmnr.ted by the vicious knowledge which certain lost suuls among ourselves deMre to sow broadcast among our girls and have sown b.oadcaar, more's the pity l_ our lrlsh j ady iB,i 8 , for the moßt put, content w.ih hrr home and not desirous to change it foi the masculine independence so much desned by our modern girls She has none of the a-gressive.-.ess got by thH-oftinua quite unneces siry-rough and tumble struggle with m n for place and pelf She does not understand the commercial instinct which sells a laudatory nvice for so much and so much ; *nd the interviewer', trade of gathers up every ht-le tnfla wberewi-h to make a spicy noticetrue or not a 9a 9 it may happen-is a, foreign to her as this other She is hampered as yet by all the old-fashioned notions of delicacy and ladytnol, of humour and self-r.sppct : and, so far a 3 sic has yet gone, she do™ not desire to «chan R i ih<we q mlities for those which Cjnstitute the state of bei ,g '• Up-to-date " and " On. the spot "