Mr. Timothy Healy has shared Mr. Parnell's fate in having
had his eye injured by the violence of the opposite faction. At least, that is his own account of the matter. He was at the Victoria Hotel, Cork, in connection with the trial con- cerning the Tipperary riot, and was in the bedroom of Mr. Illingworth, M.P., preparing for dinner, when, according to his account, a tall man, whom he recognised as Mr. O'Brien Dalton, rushed into the room and struck him a violent blow on the eye, smashing his spectacles and knocking some of the glass into his right eye, which is said to be seriously injured. He declares that his assailant, after the first stunning blow, struck him again and again. Mr. O'Brien Dalton, on the other hand, is said to assert that he never struck Mr. Healy at all ; that Mr. Healy fell against the bedpost and broke his spec- tacles, and then imputed the injury to his antagonist. Mr. Healy is very indignant at this account of the matter, and declares that the assault was premeditated, and probably sug- gested by some one else, for Mr. O'Brien Dalton had been travel- ling with Mr. Parnell two or three days before, and Mr. Parnell had been most anxious to prevent Mr. Healy from going to Sligo to address the electors on the Anti-Parnellite side. Certainly Mr. Healy's own language against Mr. Parnell had passed all the bounds of ordinary decency before this collision took place ; and it is just conceivable that the assault, if it was an assault, was planned, just as a horsewhipping is sometimes planned, to take vengeance on an offensive speaker.
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