The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-17 00:00:00

MR. MASON JONES'S LECTURE ON
CU.RRAN.

(From tLc C rode Daily 2ribun‘.)
The night was bad, but the audience was good.
The hall will hold a great number when it is filled,
and that number was there to fill it. There was a
liberal proportion of ladies. The Milesian element
was on huntl. For the Irishulau, in exile or in a

foreign land without the exile, is stirred when there
is a word about the great wrongs or the great men
of his country—and the word well said draws his
tears or his laughter. Promptly at eight Mr. Jones
came on the stand. Mr. Jones has rather a light
figure, and an intelligent countenance.
Mr. Mason Jones began without any parade or
flourish and in very good taste to handle his sub-
ject matter. He was judicious in his criticism.

He appeared to apprehend Irish history, the his-
tory of his own country, in a liberal spirit ; with
truth, but without bitterness. His business he
appeared to think was with the aesthetics of litera-
ture, as is included in a popular discourse, and least
with the acrid fierceness of one deploring the
wrongs of Ireland. He appeared to understand
perfectly the differences and relative merits of Irish
oratory ; and gave an admirable description of the
now defunct flowery style—defunct except in the
mouths of some tenth-rate haranguers. He carried
his audience with him. The learned, the polite, and

the people not so learned whose hearts leapt toward
the " ould country" applauded. Curran was a
witty fellow—and a comedian—and a joker—and
there are some good sayings and doings of his in his
witty, comic, and joking line preserved—but un-
happily very few—and these clever illustrations of
the joyous side of his character, excited peals of
laughter. We saw many a fat side shake—and
many an Irishman delighting in such glowing
illustrations of Irish wit.
Mr. Mason Jones, like a good lecturer—and be
it remembered he has no manuscript, but speaks
on the platform without notes, and with rare
fluency—considered that the best way to show-
ing the oratory of Curran was not by multiply-
ing adjectives of praise about it, but in giving
some quotations of these forensic successes. Seve-
ral were recited, where Curran was defending
oppressed Irishmen. The perorations of these all
drew forth liberal applause ; for all feel indig-
nant here that Irishmen should ever have been
oppressed or denied the rights inscribed on the
Republican banner of 1856 and 1860, " free
speech, free soil, free men." All applauded these
sentimeuta of Curran so brilliantly and truthfully

expressed.
Mr. Mason Jones has been but a few days in this
country. He comes from serving under Garibaldi,
and lecturing on the Italian war, and his other sub-
jects, in Great Britain. He has—eheu !—much to
learn. He has not been apprised that the American
Tract Society—a purely divine, godly institution
—only sold to Slavery one bright 4th of July—
emasculated British Authors in its publications,
when they said aught against man-stealing. Ah,
Mr. Mason Jones, you have much to learn ! You
have not yet found out how the whole population
of your countrymen here, almost to a man, have
been so abused and deceived by corrupt politicians,
some of them felons in the eye of the law, that
were Daniel O'Connell to come to life and to speak
the gospel of freedom among them, he would be,
pelted with rotten eggs.
Mr. Mason ones's education on American affairs
not being completed, and as he has not learned that
the democracy of this country as symbolised by its
flag means all Stripes and no Stars—no heavenly
beams of hope and liberty, and glory and beauty for
man—but the deepest damnations of slavery, he
committed a blunder in not imitating the A. T. S.
as above, and cutting out an extract of Curran de-
fending the liberty of Irishmen, that might apply
to the liberty of Americans. Accordingly with de-
licious naivete he quoted that eminent passage of
the Irish orator, which says that no matter what
sun may have burnished the skin of the exile, the
instant he touches the sacred soil of Britain, he
stands redeemed, regenerated, disenthralled, by
the genius of universal emancipation.
Here the muse of lecture history must take

breath.
Imagine an evening party all propriety, polite-
ness and good humour, suddenly startled by the
apparition of a mad bull coming, horns and hoof,
froth and tail, through the folding doors l The
instant the word Emancipation" was heard, up
rose some 200 malcontents. Hissing, swearing,
bullying and all sorts of insults followed. The
men who respected liberty themselves were happily
in the majority. A number of people hurried out
of the roum—ladies looking pale and anxious, lest
the fight should begit4 before they were out of the
hall. No police was on hand. Mr. Mason Jones
behaved as Garibaldi would under the fire of the
Pope's troops. He stood his ground. He hurled
beck hot words by saying that it was not the first
time he had been hissed—(hisses, stamps, shouts and
exits)—that he had been hissed on the platform in
England for the side he took in favour of the Ame-
rican Union and its freedom. (Hisses, roars, shouts,
stampings, &c.) He proudly hoped the time would
soon come when the American flag would not float
over a single slave, or record a single crime against
human liberty. (Hissing, threatening. G— d—
him, why does he come hero to teaeh us i 1) his
lecture. Don't let him go on—Stop him—Crush
him, &c.) Mr. Jones, amid all this stood undis-
mayed, and after various interruptions,
The storm was calmed, and he concluded a very
interesting lecture, very fluently recited, without
the drawback or frigidity of reading or referring
to MSS,

GAROTTE ROBBERIES AT BRADFORD.—SeveraI
highway and garotte robberies have been reported at the
Bradford police-station within the last few days. We men •
tioned one of them on Monday; Mr. Geo. Webster, wool-
stapler, having been robbed by a woman and several men,
in Harris-street, on Friday night. The same night Mr.
Geo. Middlebrook, inland revenue officer, was accosted by a
woman in the narrow passage from the Albion Hotel to the
Royal Oak, Kirkgate, and at the same moment three men
pounced upon him, one seizing him and grasping him by
the throat, while the rest held him firmly against the wall
and robbed him of his watch, value £6. Bradford winter
fair has brought into the town a large number of strange
thieves of both sexes. A considerable number have been
committed to the House of Correction as rogues and vaga-
bonds. On Monday two young men, named Joseph and
Isaac Smith, brothers, of Atherton, near Bradford, wero
charged with having, on Tuesday night, robbed Mr. Joshua
Jennings, of Thornton, farmer, of £25, Mr. Jennings had
been to Bradford fair, and had disposed of some cattle. He
was robbed of his money going home, and charged the
Prisoners with having robbed him immediately on leaving
the Hope and Anchor, Allerton, It appeared, however,
after a long inquiry, that. Mr. Jennings was in liquor at the
time, and had given different accounts as to the robbery.
The magistrates consequently discharged the prisoners.—
Leeds !Mercury,
John liastie, late secretary to the Doncaster
Benefit Building Society has been committed for trial at
Yerk assizes, for extensive frauds on the society,