364
NOTES AND QUERIES, [ii s. vm. NOV. s, 1913.
Despite persistent opposition, he eventually obtained legislative sanction for the great Vartry water scheme, and carried it to completion. For this he received the honour of knighthood, and among his many services to his native land it will ever be remembered that he gave pure water to Dublin.
Another public service rendered by The Freeman was its advocacy of the repeal of the Paper Duty, and Gray, at the request of my iather, formed an Irish Association to work in connexion with my father's Association in London. When my father, Cassell, and Vizetelly visited Ireland as a deputation from London, Gray received them with all his native cordiality, and by giving long reports in The Freeman of the meetings held, and by leading articles in his paper, did much to strengthen the cause in Ireland. On the repeal of the Paper Duty, Gray
" achieved his ambition, and gave the public at the price of one penny the admittedly best daily news- paper in Ireland."
In 1865 Gray was elected for Kilkenny
- ity, and represented that constituency
until his death on the 9th of April, 1875. In the form of a Commission of Inquiry he had investigated the condition of the Established Church and its relations to- wards the Irish people, the results being published in The Freeman's Journal from time to time.
Sir John was succeeded as proprietor of The Freeman's Journal by his son Edmund Dwyer Gray. In 1879 Ireland was again visited with famine, and Gray, being then Lord Mayor of Dublin, organized a fund for the relief of the distressed districts which amounted to 180,OOOZ. In 1882 he was condemned by Judge Lawson to pay a fine of 300?. and to be confined for three months in Richmond Bridewell where his father had been imprisoned with O'Connell forty years before.
"The Freeman's Journal had exposed the con- duct of specially selected jurymen, who during a murder trial had been taken overnight to a hotel, and had spent the interval between listening to the evidence and returning a verdict of ' Guilty in dis- sipation and horseplay. Judge Lawson's sense of propriety was offended by Gray's condemnation of this indecency. The public insisted upon marking its sense of the incident by paying the fine."
Edmund Dwyer Gray died on the 27th of March, 1888, at the early age of forty-two. He was a man of handsome presence and wide accomplishments, and his sudden death excited profound regret.
" As a wise precaution for the future of the great journalistic interests which had grown to unex- ampled prosperity under his fostering care, he had
in the previous year converted the business of The
Freeman's Journal into a Limited Liability Com-
pany, in which he retained the position of managing
director with supreme control of the policy of the
papers."
The shares were subscribed for six times over on the day the prospectus was issued.
Gray died in stirring times. The first Home Rule Bill had been defeated, and a sharp fall in prices was the signal for evic- tions.
"A Coercion policy was resolved upon by the Party that had been in negotiation with Parnell
the previous year The Times began a series of
articles under the title 'Parnellism and Crime.'
The Freeman's Journal took an essential part in all the work, exposing every tyrannical act of the Coercionists, opening its columns for the defence of the evicted and of the cause, and supporting the Home Rule fight, which Gladstone gallantly led, with all its resource?."
We are now brought to a period too recent to be treated in our columns. The history of The Freeman's Journal is the history of Ireland for the past 150 years. The vicissitudes of the Irish people have been the vicissitudes of the paper, and it may be truly claimed for it that " so close a relationship between a newspaper and a people is rare, if not unique, in the history of the Press." Not only has this relationship existed at home, but wherever Irishmen have gone The Freeman's Journal has followed them.
" Froude tells somewhere in his ' Oceana * how, when wandering in the Australian bush, beyond the tracks of civilization, he came upon a lonely rancher's hut, and found there as the only memento of Europe amid the desert the coloured cartoons of The Weekly Freeman."
Among the contents of the Jubilee num- ber are the history of Irish education since 1763 ; ' Tobacco-Growing in Ireland,' by Mr. William Redmond, M.P. ; and * An His- torical Survey of Trade and Commerce.' Under the last heading high praise is justly accorded to Gaelic fine-art workers, who have laid under contribution older civilizations, and studied their metal- work, their enamels, and their manuscripts. The illuminated manuscripts of Ireland soon surpassed the work of the most cunning artists of the East ; the triumph of Irish art in this direction is the ' Book of Kells,' pre- served in Trinity College, Dublin.
In metal-work Irish artificers were no less skilled.
" Their gold and enamel work has never been surpassed, and it is a significant comment on the relative culture of Britain at this early stage that, whereas the Dublin Museum possesses some five hundred gold ornaments weighing about 570 ounces, the great British Museum has
