A very large meeting was held near Dublin on Sunday,
to de- mand amnesty for the Fenian prisoners. The numbers attending were variously estimated at from 40,000 to 80,000, but nearly two-thirds of the population of the capital wore the green in token of sympathy. The vast concourse was perfectly orderly and good-humoured, but some strong speeches were made ; Mr. Butt, for example, demanding whether " if the voice of that mighty multitude should fail, the Irish people were free ?" and Mr. Moore denouncing that " vile, hideous, usurped tyranny of national self-conceit and national self-will that called itself Eng- lish public opinion," that " adulterated compound of sanctimonious hypocrisy and secret infidelity, half outward swagger and half- inherent flunkeyism," and so on. The resolutions, however, were temperate, asking the release of the prisoners as a measure of con- ciliation. Is it really as impossible for Irishmen to understand Englishmen as for Englishmen to understand Irishmen? Will they never see that to menace the British Government, —and these monster meetings are menaces,—is to make it impossible for that Government to give way ? The time to release Fenians is when Ireland shows symptoms of want of sympathy, not, indeed, with their end, so far at it was patriotic, but their method.
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