Lord St. Leonards wrote a curious appeal to the Fenians
in Thursday's Times to confine their operations to Ireland, point- ing out to them, with undeniable wisdom, that instead of gaining anything by blowing up London streets and mutilating the English poor, they excite thereby' a deep popular rage and fury against them, which renders their case for the separation of Ireland far more desperate than before. True, we hope ; but ought not we English to be content to share a little with unfortunate Ireland the horrible results of the Fenian folly and violence if the result is to be to render Fenian plots more hopeless than ever? Suppose the result is, as Lord St. Leonards prophesies, to alienate all the sincere Irish Catholics from the party of rebellion, and to paralyze the Fenian influence even amongst the Irish themselves,—ought we to complain if we English have achieved so great a result by having the vials of Fenian wrath,—in the shape of Fenian fire or otherwise,—poured out upon us instead of upon Ireland ? We are not sure that Lord St. Leonardo is right in trying to avert the attention of the Fenian mischief-makers from England to Ireland, —unless indeed he thinks that the more you pull in one direction the more a Fenian will go in the other. If the holocaust of a few hundreds of us by these wicked plots could destroy Fenianism,--- ought we not to be ready ?
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