met; and that settles for me the whole question of your English government sys tem in its dealings with Ireland." Of course we must all admit — every man in his senses is compelled to admit — that the government of any country is bound to de fend its own existence. It cannot allow the most virtuous man or the most patriotic man to endeavor to overthrow it without taking strong measures to sustain it against overthrow. Therefore, as it seems to us, there is no reason that even an Irishman should complain against the fact that the English government, after sentence in a court of law, consigned, let us say, Mr. Michael Davitt to imprisonment. But then, was it really necessary that he should have been condemned to be yoked to a cart which dragged stones at Portland, and to sleep in a cell in which he hardly had room to lie down? Was he really to be con founded with the ordinary class of mis creants who murder their wives, and who use brutal violence to old men in order to rob them of their money? Can anybody on earth say that the greatness and the in tegrity of the empire are to be secured by means which confound a man like Theobald Wolfe Tone, or a man like John Mitchel, or a man like Michael Davitt, with Bill Sykes and Jack the Ripper? In the same House of Commons, when the debate on the ad dress was going on, sat with Mr. Davitt, Mr. James F. X. O'Brien, who in his youth had also been concerned in a Fenian insurrec tion, and who had been sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. He had, in fact, the proud distinction of being the last man on whom such a sentence 'had been passed. The sentence, which of course was impossible to be carried out in our days, was commuted to penal servitude for life; and that sentence, too, was commuted, on the ground that during an attack on a police barrack he had determinedly protected the lives of the few poor policemen who had to give in. Calumny itself could never say a
word against his character, and he was al lowed by amnesty to return to his own country, and he became a member of the House of Commons, and a member of whom the bitterest Conservative would not say a single word that was not a word of re spect. The debate, therefore, on the ad dress in the opening of the session of 1S97, brought this question into a concentrated form : Is it right to class men of this char acter, and this purpose, and this kind, with Bill Sykes and Jack the Ripper? It has to be remembered that America, — that is to say, the conquering Northern States, —after their great civil war, put no one to death, or even prolonged the period of imprison ment, except for two or three who were ac tually convicted of assassination. The great leader of the Southern civil war was allowed, after a very short period of imprisonment, to go his way unharmed. Mr. Swinburne, the English poet, published at the time when the Manchester prisoners were under trial — the story is told already in these volumes — a poem in which he said: — "Lo! How fair from afar, taintless of tyranny, stands Thy mighty daughter for years who trod the wine press of war Shines with immaculate hands, Slays not a foe, neither fears. Stains not peace with a scar."
And he added, speaking of vindictive punishments : — "Neither is any land great whom in its fear-stricken mood. These things only can save."'
Lord John Russell had pointed out in the House of Commons, a great many years be fore, that no death and no torture inflicted on any political patriot, on any political fanatic, ever prevented some other man of the same mood and of the same purpose from following just the same course. No doubt it is a difficult question to settle — that question as to the manner of dealing
