Catalpa to Australia are just the men to send out a hundred Catalpas to wipe British commerce from the face of the sea.—Pilot, June 17, 1876.
LESSONS FROM THE PRISONERS' ESCAPE
The well-planned and boldly executed rescue of the Irish political prisoners from the penal colony of Western Australia contains lessons worth noting by those who desire to perpetuate Irish nationality. A nation that cultivates the evil weed of Distrust will never become strong or great. Cohesion is the principle of power, and the people that cannot stand by each other for a common cause, under common leaders, are no stronger than a ball of sand, to be scattered at a touch.
Heretofore the curse of Ireland has been the impossibility of union. Party hated party; class distrusted class. Rich men were called traitors because they, having something to lose, refused to enter on every wild plan of revolution without considering the probabilities. Poor men were too easily led by demagogues. The man who spake loudest, who boasted most, became the idol of the hour. When the opportunity offered, he sold the people he had so easily deceived, and scorned them for their credulity. There are plenty of "successful men" of this class—such as Judge Keogh, who a few years ago called God to witness that he would never desert the People's Cause, but who, when made a judge, was the first to lay a ruthless hand and an insulting tongue on the religion and nationality of his country.
With such an experience Irishmen have grown distrustful to such a degree that the danger from their doubt is greater than from their deception. Better a thousand times to be deceived than to lose faith in your brother's honesty and patriotism.
The cure of this national disease is coming—for the
