Ridgeway. Scian Dubh
to the contrary, then, by English sympathizers or weak-kneed patriots, so long as Canada is a portion of the British empire, so long is she a legitimate point of attack for the enemies of that empire, and no description of special pleading can make it otherwise. And here we would advise the people of the New Dominion to look into this matter and weigh the consequences of being influenced by any seeming or real hostile attitude to the government of the United States, or the mighty hosts which are now gathering in battle array in the cause of Irish freedom. England is fallen! Her power and prestige are gone forever! The star of Irish liberty has already emerged from the clouds that have so long lain piled up along the horizon of the land of the enslaved Celt, and no power on earth can obscure its growing Lustre, until it blazes forth in the full meridian, splendor of Irish nationality and independence! Let our neighbors, therefore, we say, not be betrayed into raising a puny arm against the tremendous force that cannot fail to be exerted ere long in this connection, or their redemption from the British yoke and their consequent absorption by the great American Commonwealth may be reddened with more blood than the circumstances of the case really require.
When Barry had finished his few observations on this topic, Greaves, in further pursuance of the subject, and with the apparent view of gathering the tone of Canadian opinion upon it, observed, that if all the Irish population of the Provinces were as true to the sentiment of the independence of their country, as O’Brien and his military friend, there might be some reason for apprehending that the intended invasion of the Canadas by the Fenian organization of the United States, would tend to more alarming results to England than were anticipated by the friends of that country; remarking, in addition, that the Irish element must be very large in her majesty’s Canadian possessions, if one might judge from the recent St. Patrick’s Day demonstration throughout them, and the various St. Patrick’s Societies to be found scattered from one end of the colony to the other; all of which were, no doubt, more or less tinged with opinions and aspirations similar to those held by the two individuals who had just spoken.
“Oh, yes,” rejoined Big Tom, “there are St. Patrick Societies in abundance, but let me inform you, that instead of bein national associations, as they purport to be, they are the very sthrongholds of England in this country, and, with scarce an exception, the deadliest opponents to the very indepindence that we have benn jist spakin about. For the most part, they are filled chock full of a pack of miserable toadies to the governmint, which manages to gather into them a pack of rottin, ladin Irishmin who can make speeches, dhrink ‘the day and all who honor it,’ sing ‘God save the Queen,’ and talk English blatherskite about the glory of the impire, the army and navy, and everythin else in the world save and except the wrongs of poor, ould Ireland, and the way to redhress them. Why, sir, barrin a word dhropped here and there, you’d think it was in an Orange Lodge you were, if you happened to step in on one of those societies while engaged in celebrating, as they call it, the anniversary of their pathron Saint; for it’s nothin you’d hear but ‘Rule Britannia,’ ‘The Red, White and Blue,’ and kindhered sintiments, and if a chap did happen to give ‘The harp that wanst,’ why, its the sweet, soft air they’d be admirin, and the poethry of Tom Moore, rather than the low wail for vingeance that was smothered in the heart of the song itself. What could you expect from sich a St. Patrick’s Society as that of Toronto, with a gintleman at its head with the freedom of an English city in his breeches pocket, and a desire to emulate English statesmen and English institutions in his heart! Look, also, at the able and larned Irishman who stands at the head of the University of that same methropolis of the West, and whose eloquence so mystifies his faithlessness to Ireland as to confuse you, and almost lade you captive, until, on cooler deliberation, you find that his response to ‘the toast of the evenin,’ is naither more nor less than a superb burst of oratory, robed in green and goold, but with a heart as purely English as that which throbbed within the breast of the renegade Wellington or the late wily Lord Palmerston. Oh, no! the St. Patrick Societies of America, and of every other portion of the globe, are simply whited sepulchres, or false beacons erected or fosthered by the English governmint to mislade the unsuspectin portions of our race from the allagiance due to their own counthry, by studiously inculcatin sintimints and ideas favorable to English supremacy, which can be paraded before the world as the thrue expression of the Irish people, in relation to the red that governs them, and their willinness to remain as they are, part and parcel of the impire. Sich min as the two I have jist mintioned do more to perpetuate the thraldom of our country than the most unfrindly and subtle statesman that exists on the other side of the Atlantic to-day; bekase they are powerful inemies, by their example in our own camp, and bekase there are those amongst us who are aisily led, and who consequintly fall a victim to their influence and example.”
“Sure, we all know, that the Scotch thricksther at the head of the govermint here, could do but little if it was not for such people as Ogle R., George. L., Darcy and ‘the docther,’ as he is called in Toronto; and thus it is, that although the three Toronto gintlemen that I now name, are, I honestly believe, deservedly respected and esteemed in every other relation of life, they belong body and sowl to the English sintimint of the counthry; and if the most favorable opportunity was offered them to-morrow, would never raise a helpin hand to place the green above the red. But, as this is dhry work, and as I have not had sich a bout at it since I opened here, come, one and all, and let us wet our whistles, for I see you have jist made spy-glasses of your tumblers.”
CHAPTER II.
Although delivered in a style somewhat uncouth, there was a great deal of truth and native eloquence about these observations of O’Brien. There is no doubt but the St. Patrick Societies of this continent, and perhaps of the world, are characterized, in no ordinary degree, by the spirit and design to which he alluded. In so far as those belonging to the British empire are concerned, he was right, almost without an exception; for it must be admitted, that these societies are, for the most part, filled with pseudo patriots, who discard all revolutionary theories, and are of the opinion, that the independence of their country, if they ever cast a glance in that direction, ought to be achieved in the most lady-like manner, and with “white kids.” Look, for instance, at some of the members of these associations and kindred bodies in New York and in various other parts of the Union, and analyze the spirit which finds expression in their observance of the anniversary of Ireland’s tutelar Saint. From the moment that the cloth is removed, until the last of the company gyrates out of the room to his carriage, we have nothing but a war of eloquence between rival politicians who are candidates for municipal or other lucrative honors, or a subtle bid for Irish support through some adroit manoeuvre, by which an adversary is, for the time being, thrown into the shade. To be sure, Mr. Richard This or Mr. John That, may occasionally give us a taste of his research and learning, in a re-hash from the “Annals of the Four Masters,” or from some of the leading periodicals of the day; and we may, in addition, be treated to an original poem touching Ireland from some of the various up-hill-workers of the Muses, with whom the great mercantile centre abounds; but as to anything practical relative to the amelioration of the wretched condition of the country in whose name they assemble upon such occasions, that is simply out of the question; all parties, as a general thing, satisfying themselves with a hacknied and stereotyped enumeration of her wrongs, and the usual bland denunciations of her oppressors.
And here we give an illustration of St. Patrick Societies under their most patriotic aspect; for the power of speech which characterizes, this great Commonwealth, and our total immunity from English persecution, enable the spirit which actuates these societies, beneath the skull and cross bones of St. George, to be a little more patriotic here, in its language at least, than it dares to be in any portion of the dominions of England. Still, its positive antagonism to Irish independence, under the British flag, is scarcely more reprehensible than its negative influence in the same direction under the Stars and Stripes; so that Ireland, suffering at their hands alike, might with every degree of justice place them in the same category.
After all, it is the masses that free a nation, and thank God for it. A leader may in vain look for a host to follow him, but a host never in vain for a leader, and hence the