Mr. Chamberlain's visit to Dublin was bitterly resented by the
extreme Nationalists, but the " intensely hot reception " prepared for him ended in fiasco. A meeting of protest organised by the Irish Transvaal Committee was very properly proclaimed by the authorities as inciting to sedition, and the efforts of the Socialist-Republican party to defy the prohibition only resulted in their being slowly and ignominiously moved on. The Transvaal flag was captured by an inspector, and the Amazon whom the authorities have very wisely refrained from making a martyr of, found that none of the windows of the Celtic Literary Society's rooms would open wide enough to let her address the mob. A few stones were thrown and a few batons were used before the demonstration melted away. At a small meeting held at the Transvaal Committee's rooms violent speeches in abuse of Mr. Chamberlain and in praise of the Boers were made by Mr. Devitt, Mr. William Redmond, Mr. Patrick O'Brien, and Miss Maud Gonne. In the course of this lady's speech her remark that Mr. Chamberlain was at the Viceregal Lodge elicited the comment, " There was a man shot there before." The chairman protested, and Miss Gonne added that while it was their duty to hate Mr. Chamberlain, no man should lay a hand on him, because evidently he was singled out by destiny to bring about the ruin and destruction of a blood-stained Empire. The episode forms perhaps the last scene in the distressful comedy of the " union of hearts."
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