the attendant and amused servitor. Pat's eagerness to enjoy the good things he has been led to expect, and his mortification at their being removed out of reach and out of sight are ridiculously rendered.
We must not be misunderstood; although O'Connell had far greater personal influence over the Irish than his successors, he was for all that in political matters eminently unscrupulous.[1] At the general election of 1835, the avowed principles on which he stood forth as a candidate were: repeal of the union,—universal suffrage, vote by ballot,—triennial parliaments,—and the abolition of tithes. "I am," he said, "decidedly for the vote by ballot. Whoever votes by ballot votes as he pleases, and no one need know how he votes." Yet, in spite of these avowed principles, he controlled the election of Irish candidates after the following fashion:—The Knight of Kerry started as a candidate for his native county, but dared to avow his intention to take an independent course. He had spent all his life in resisting Orangemen, and yet O'Connell said, "Every one who dares to vote for the Orange knight of Kerry shall have a death's head and cross-bones painted on his door." The voters at the Irish elections were collected in the chapels by the priests, and led forth to the poll under threats of being refused all the rites and visited with all the punishments of their Church. Under these influences, the Knight of Kerry, supported by nearly all the property, intelligence, and respectability of the county, was defeated. Of a candidate for New Ross who had refused to enlist under his banner, O'Connell said, "Whoever shall support him his shop shall be deserted, no man shall pass his threshold; put up his name as a traitor to Ireland; let no man speak to him; let the children laugh him to scorn." His example was followed of course by his lieutenants. It says something for Irish independence that these unscrupulous "dodges" were not always successful; and
- ↑ One whose name is unconnected with any honourable action, whose whole life has been one scene of skulking from dangers into which he had drawn others, and who is occupied from one end of the year to the other in devising plans of drawing enormous fortunes from squalid beggary."—Dr. Maginn.
