The public of Dublin have been amused by a town
eclogue between Mr. O'Connell, "the Liberator" of the Catholic peelers, and the Reverend Tresham Gregg, "Grand Chaplain" of Protestant Operative Orangemen. Moved to desperation by • the curt-letters and dry treatment which the ultra-loyal Orange- men have received at the hands of those in power, as well as by zeal for the Protestant Established Church, Mr. Gregg rushes into the arms of the Repealers ; and he is received by "the Liberator," wearing the cap of Brien Boroihme, with affectionate embraces : both vie in singing the dispraises of the Cabinet, and console themselves by swearing eternal friendship. This tale looks like a caricature : in sooth, the affair itself is a caricature- s very extravagant, ugly, unseemly caricature, in the worst pos- sible taste. The two parties have reviled each other so much that this abrupt fraternization has all the shameless levity of
• prostitution : Peachum and Lockit were less barefaced, for they had not violated appearances. It should take some probationary term of sufferance and gradual approximation to make the two men tolerate each other's presence. The occasion and an inci- dent that occurred illustrate the miserable spirit—miserably fatal to Ireland—that prevailed. The meeting was one ostensibly to promote the development of Ireland's industrial resources. Pro- fessor Kane, the author of a well-known and often-quoted work . on The Industrial Resources of Ireland, was asked to sign a re- • quisition for the meeting ; and he did so, on the assurance that no political subject should be discussed : "I told them," he says, in a letter to a Dublin journal," at the same time, that real good was only to be done by going to work, and not by making - speeches at public meetings." He went to the meeting : as he entered the room he found the Mayor talking about "legislative independence," and Mr. O'Connell echoing with a "Hurrah for - Repeal ! " Mr. Kane left the meeting. The upshot of the pro- , ceedings, then, was, that one of the most distinguished represen- tatives of the real movement to improve the industrial resources • of Ireland was alienated—the Reverend and irreverent Tresham Gregg, who seduces operatives from their work to listen to violent Tory Protestant nonsense, was gained. Was it the "industrial resources of Ireland" that the meeting had in view, or the not industrial resources of some rent or other—Repeal or Protestant
• Operative, or both ? Such are Ireland's " patriots " I—to wit- ness these things do Mr. Smith O'Brien and other Irish Members stay away- from Parliament ; leaving their beloved country to be
• defended from impolitic taxation by the discretion of "Saxons" • and Conservative Ministers !
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