The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-03 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIDIES.—So much pains have been taken to expose
the folly of the Fenian Conspiracy that the public
have little or nothing to learn in that respect from
the revelations of the Government prosecution ; but
there are few persons who will not be astonished
at its atrocity. We seek in vain for a parallel
for the objects and intentions of this monstrous
conspiracy since the Jacqueries of the Middle
Ages. Will it be believed that the intention of
the movement was not only to separate Ireland
from Great Britain, and establish a Republic
instead of a Monarchy, but involved a scheme
of wholesale assassination which might have made
Marat, " the friend of the people," shudder and
turn pale ? The Fenians seem to have contemplated
nothing less than a complete slaughter of the aris-
tocracy, including in that comprehensive term all
possessors of realised property. The Duke of
Leinster, the Marquis of Sligo, and the Marquis of
Ormonde were pitched upon by name as victims to
be offered up to the Moloch of Communism and
fraternal equality. The prize which was kept before
the eyes of the members of this society was nothing
less than the division among them of all the property
of Ireland. It is a misnomer to call it a conspiracy
against England; it is a conspiracy against every-
thing that is wealthy, intelligent, or respectable in
Ireland itself. Amongst those primarily marked out
for slaughter are the Roman Catholic priests, partly,
we presume, as constituting a sort of aristocracy,
and partly because they have exerted themselves
with vigour and success in opposing this insane
movement. The intention. was to make a clean
sweep and to reconstruct society from its very foun-
dations. How little suited for the task were these
Gamines of the counter we need not say ; what we
are now considering is not the probability of suc-
cess, but the nature of the undertaking/. The middle
classes had their attempt in 1848 ; the movement
just detected and suppressed was entirely the work
of the lower classes, and as such is signalised by
many features closely resembling the rebellion of
Jack Cade. None were to be spared save those who
" go in clouted shoon," the rest were to be extir-
pated without mercy. We need not say how much
all this detracted from the possibility of success,
could we concede for a moment that a possibility of
success ever existed. The undertaking of the
Fenians was nothing less than to conquer, not
only the whole force of England, employed with
perfect vigour and unanimity ; it was also to
overcome all the property, all the rank, all the
intelligence of Ireland, fighting for existence against
an enemy the very first step in whose policy was
to be their utter annhilation. Such a scheme
could hardly have originated in Ireland itself, and
many circumstances show that it did not. It has
been the nature of Irish insurrections at all times,
though never peculiarly well concerted or deeply
planned, to rely for success mainly on external
aid. The rebellion of 1798 looked for its support
to the French Republic ; the insurrection of 1848
drew its confidence from the same source • and it is
reasonable to suppose that the Fenians relied on some
similar assistance. We cannot believe that a plot of
purely Irish extraction would have contemplated such
a measure as the assassination of all the priests in
Ireland ; nor do we believe that the doctrines of
Communism have been so far developed in that
country as to make it probable that the idea would
ever occur to a knot of purely Irish conspirators of
massacring all the proprietary class of the country.
The native Irish have not yet divested themselves of
all love and veneration for their priests, nor carried
their desires far beyond a wish for the possession of
the land which they consider an imaginary race of
people called the Saxons have wrested from them.
All these things point clearly to a foreign origin,
and the evidence as well as the probabilities of the
case confirm the conclusion. Ireland has follies and
blunders enough of her own to account for, without
being called upon to bear the greatest share of the
blame of this last and most wonderful escapade. The
truth is that Ireland has lost the control of her own
destiny, we do not mean by being absorbed into E n
land, but by the connexion which she has formed
with another and more distant country. The con-
stant emigration from Ireland to America has pro-
duced its results. There are more of the Irish race
in America than in Ireland itself. They have not
achieved any very brilliant success in the home
of their adoption, but the conditions of the new
country are so favourable to those who have to
I dispose of the commodity most in demand there
—coarse anti rough labour—that the American
Irish have not failed to achieve a degree of pro-
sperity much higher than that which they attained
at home. The character of this volatile and impul-
sive race has been altered, but, we fear, not im-
proved by its expatriation. They carry with them
that burning hate for England which it has been the
policy alike of their political leaders and their reli-
gious instructors to inculcate into their minds, and
to that hatred they add yet deeper aversion for the
class of landed proprietors, whom they have been
taught to regard as cruel and wicked monopolists
as often as they have ventured to oppose the slightest
obstacle to the original curse of Ireland—the minute
subdivision of the land. The happy institution of
universal suffrage, the foundation on which Ame-
rican institutions repose, has given to the poor igno-
rant and prejudiced Irishman: a power which he
never could possess under any other circumstances.
The Irish vote has become a matter of consequence,
and American newspapers and American politicians
have not been slow to pander to the weaknesses
and delusions of those who dispose of it. They
are perpetually telling a people who have left
their native country, simply because it is overpopu-
lated and cannot support them, that they are the
victims of the tyranny of a heartless aristocracy and
of the oppression of an alien Government. Nothing
is more agreeable than the crown of martyrdom
without its thorns, and the Irishman revelling in
abundance and prosperity is never so happy as
when he is told that his imaginary miseries spring
from the tyranny and cruelty of others. It is in
the assemblies of these mer, held openly and
without interference from the constituted authori-
ties of America, that the Fenian plot has its origin.
Money is freely subscribed, for it is lightly come by
and lavishly spent, and an organisation is created
which probably takes its full toll of the funds that
pass through its hands, according to the most re-
ceived precedents on such occasions. Thus is created
a sort of hybrid opinion, half Irish, half American,
and probably more absurd, wicked, and atrocious
than either Ireland or America would have produced
alone. The business of those Irish who still remain
in their native country is evidently very subordinate
and secondary. They will, indeed, probably have
to take the lion's share of those very disagreeable
consequences which are apt to dog the steps of un-
successful conspirators. The American Brother-
hood have held many enthusiastic meetings and sent
over a few agents, who may be counted by tens, to
get up a movement. They have been profuse in
promises ; they are building imaginary fleets, and
raising problematical armies ; but while they are
doing all this they leave their wretched dupes to fall
without an effort into the hands of justice, without
even as much glory as could be gained by the siege
of a single farmhouse, the stealing of a single horse,
or the valiant defence of a single cabbage garden.
The honour of the Fenian conspiracy is due to the
American, and not to the native Irish, and we con-
gratulate the members of the Brotherhood on the
other side of the Atlantic on the noble scheme they
have planned and the brilliant success which has
attended it. It is early, as yet, perhaps, to seek to
draw a moral from this strange story, but one or two
reflections are so obvious that we cannot withhold
them. We beg to call the attention of our critics
on the Continent and in America to the kind of
grievances which England inflicts upon Ireland and
which the Fenians conspire to redress. England,
after all, is a mere pretext. What it is sought to
annihilate is the existence of property, aristocracy,
and religion in Ireland, and that religion not the
religion of the Saxon, but of the Celt, not of the
conquering, but of the conquered race. So little has
Ireland really to complain of that the only device by
which an insurrection can be raised is by offering
the poor the plunder of the property of the rich.
We are constantly hearing from Irish members of
Parliament of the discontent of Ireland, and, some-
times with menaces, sometimes with entreaties, are
urged to do away with the causes of that discontent.
The discontent at last assumes a tangible form, and
it turns out that the real objects of it are not the
remote English, but the very- possessors of property
in Ireland who have so often striven to intimidate
us by pointing to the disaffection of men who had
already singled out, not us, but our monitors them-
selves for their victims. It has been the policy of
the Roman Catholic priesthood to keep up within
certain bounds a spirit of discontent in the people
of Ireland against England and against the owners
of the soil in their own country. The priesthood
have succeeded a little beyond their wishes ; there
is no lack of discontent, only they themselves are
marked out as the first victims of the popular com-
motion they have so largely contributed to raise.
The spirit they have raised has broken the charmed
circle, and proposes, according to the approved prac-
tice in such cases, to commence operations by tear-
ing the enchanter to pieces.
POST,--"Yellow fever in Swansea!" is confessedly

an alarming announcement ; and it is not one the
truthfulness of which we are prepared at present
summarily to deny; Let it be admitted that the
announcement has beeii shade; OR reliable data, by
the newspapers and medical journals; but at the
same time let the public calmly look at the intelli-
gence in the light of history and medical experience.
It will then most probably be admitted that there
is no gittind at this time for alarm at the invasion
of a foreign pestilence, but rather cause of thankful-
ness for a mild warning to the municipal authorities
of many of our towns as to their shameful unpre-
paredness for outbreaks of disease incident to parti-
calar localities under the favourable influence of ex-
ceptional atmospheric conditions such as have lately
existed. Twenty-two years ago, in the hot Septem-
ber of 1843, a contagious fever broke out in the
slums of Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and other
Scottish towns, In the December of that year, a
physician of the Edinburgh Fever Hospital, after
careful observation and reporting of hundreds of
cases, published a minute account of that memorable
epidemic; and it appears to us very probable that
the language in which he described " the highly con-
gestive form" of the fever which then prevailed will
be found pretty accurately descriptive of the Swan-
sea cases, now so properly attracting the notice of
the Privy Council. In the work referred to the
author remarked—" One of the most common symp-
toms in the highly congestive form of the disease is
yellowness of the conjunctivae, and of the whole sur-
face of the body. It generaly appears between the
third and seventh day, and is always most intense on
the face, neck, chest, abdomen, and thighs. The hue
of the neck and chest is the most vivid. . . .
Associated with the yellowness there are generally
depression, less or more delirium . . . and
hemorrhages from some of the mucous membranes.
In the worst of the cases black, coffee-ground-like
matter is ejected, In some cases the black vomit
occurs without the yellowness ; and on the other
hand, at the autopsy of yellow patients who have
had no black vomit, this matter" has been found in
the stomach and other parts of the alimentary canal"
Such were many of the cases of the Edinburgh epi-
demic of 1843, in its first and second month, when
the temperature was high ; such, in all probability,
are the Swansea cases of the unusually hot Septem-
ber of 1865. Prior, as well as subsequent, to 1845
a very similar fever has appeared-in different places,
generally, we believe, during hot autumnal weather.
To the medical profession, and to a large section of
the general community interested in public health
questions, the milder form of this disease is pretty
familiar under the common and appropriate name of
"relapsing fever," the usual occurrence of relapse
being one of its well-marked features. The "yellow
fever" now at Swansea is, we apprehend, an aggra-
vated form of " relapsing fever ;" just as the yellow
cases which occurred at the commencement of the
Edinburgh epidemic of 1843, and a vast number of
milder " relapsing" cases, in which no yellowness
appeared, were truly and essentially cases of the
same epidemic. Till the facts are before the public)
in a more detailed and unimpeachable form than we
now posssess, it would be premature to give a posi-
tive opinion as to the origin of the present Swansea
fever. It is, however, important, whilst the ques-
tion is undergoing investigation, to express a hope
that evidence will be rigidly taken and fully pup-
lished, not only as to all the circumstances con-
nected with the state of health of the crew of the
barque Hecla on its arrival, and the intercourse
between it and the Swansea residents who have had
yellow fever, but likewise as to the type of disease in
Swansea at the date of the arrival of the Hecla, and
subsequent to that event. In particular, it[will be
essential to ascertain whether cases of the more
usual form of relapsing fever have occurred simul-
taneously with the yellow cases. In the meantime,
it is important to recall attention to the fact that
the Scottish epidemic of 1843 was never supposed
to be of foreign origin, and that it almost simulta-
neously sprang up in several towns, and that chiefly
among the crowds of Irish reapers and those asso-
ciated with them in localities always filthy and
overcrowded, but then far more crowded than usual.
This filth and overcrowding, combined with the high
temperature of the season, no doubt stamped the
fever with an aggravated type, though it is not cer-
tain that it originated in these conditions, as some
maintain. While it spread from top to bottom of
lofty "lands" in the High-street, scourged the ad-
jacent closes, and reigned for months triumphant
in the lodging-houses of the Grassmarket, West-
port, and Cowgate, it did not cross the bridges to
the New-town. No doubt a few scattered cases
did occur in the airy streets of the New-town, but
they were all cases clearly traceable to contact with
congregated sick in the Old-town. Physicians,
medical assistants in the hospitals, missionaries, and
nurses were those only who suffered in the New-
town. In the other Scottish towns visited by the
epidemic, the exemption of the districts under good
sanitary conditions, and of the well-to-do classes,
was equally marked, as in Edinburgh. Taking into
account, therefore, all the circumstances as at present
before the public, we hold that the announcement of
yellow fever at Swansea, truthful though it be, is
not very alarming, and that it ought to be accepted
by the municipal authorities of that and other towns
as a warning to conform, with all convenient speed,
to nature's laws of health, which cannot continu-
ously be infringed with impunity. The terrible dis-
ease known as " yellow fever" in the tropics has
never established itself in the British isles, though in
numerous instances ships with cases on board have
come into our ports. It ought to be reassuring to
the public to know that the real " yellow Jack" is
incapable of propagation in our temperate climate,
and that it is only amid rotten vegetation and ex-
cessive humidity in countries with a mean tempera-
ture of 82 F. that this scourge has prevailed:
" THE EXAMINER" ON THE FENIAN FLEAS.-1.11
" Nicholas Nickleby," Smike and another represent
a general rebellion on a country stage. In the
present performance of the " Plot Discovered, or
Erin Preserved," the absurdity is reversed, and it
is not the duality but the plurality of the rebels that
makes the affair so ludicrous. They are so very
many and so very little, or, as the Americans would
say, " cruel small." Government lays hold of
traitors of the size of fleas, but their name, forsooth,
is legion. And it is their boast that, as there is as
good fish in the sea, as ever came out of it, so there
is a fine stock of Fenians left, notwithstanding the
captures made. And this may be true, for fools,
knaves, and dupes always abound. The idea of
this conspiracy was derived from the exhibition of
the Industrious Fleas. Those fleas marched like
p
soldiers, fired guns, and performed various evolu-
tions in admirable order. Why should not Irish-
men do as much and as well—or even surpass the
fleas, upset a mighty Government, and establish a
republic under a green flag ? So the fleas indus-
triously commenced drilling, organising, and con-
spiring, They appointed Captains of hundreds,
Colonels, Generals, and what not in that line ; and
so bold did they feel, so confident of their own
strength in disciplined numbers and the coming
armada from America, for which a bright 100k-out
is kept, that they made no secret of their great
designs, and thought indeed to strike terror by
boisterously proclaiming their treason. Could they
realise that. unanimity of fleas which Curran
thought must be irresistible ? And hard to deal
with, in one sense, it must be confessed are the
fleas, for catching them is not a very nice or dig-
nified business, nor much advancing total sup-
pression. Government gets hold of what it wants,
but what is it? A flea, a traitorous flea, a flea of
the worst intentions, a flea that would overthrow
the throne, a flea that would set up a republic, a
flea that would unfurl that green flag ' appro-
priate to the sovereignty of the greenest of
people. It vexes us to see treason reduced so low'
that the law cannot stoop to deal with it without
some compromise of its dignity. Is there no arti-
ficial way of raising the affair, and giving it some
show of consequence, fictitious though it may be ?
Bulwer Lytton tells us of a Hidalgo of mighty pride
and small means, who used to wear magnifying
glasses when he dined off a bunch of cherries, to the
end that he might seem to be eating fruit as big as
pumpkins. By similar process could the fleas be
magnified to the size of elephants ? No, their num-
ber forbids, and fleas will be fleas, Fenians Feniael
no matter what is done to make more of then2''
the"uu.
there is one expedient by which may be escaped
humiliation of confessing that the treason grappled
with has not mounted above the condition of a
lawyer's clerk, and has its general level in the de-
gree of shop-boys. It is to give the prisoners their
rank in the Fenian army posse. There is a
in
colonel now in custody who was in a Union poor-
house last winter. By all means give him his
Fenian rank to sink other circumstances. There
are Generals, too, no doubt, whose capture would
sound well but for the mention that one is a tailor,
another a costermonger, another a muffin-man, and
so on. We are told, too, that there is a Field-
Marshal, nothing less, who escaped from the Widow
Cormack's cabbage garden (when rebellion suc-
cumbed to a sergeant's guard of policemen) dis-
guised as a lady's maid. Let him have his bacon.
Why indeed grudge anything that can elevate this
egregious nonsense ? Assume their honours if they
have them not. Perhaps there is a President of the
coming Irish Republic in some mean calling, and
would it not dignify the prosecution to set forth his
high pretensions in the indictment ? The thing is
now insufferably low and mean, and something
must be done to give it, if not the reality, at least
the show of some elevation. But alas ! we fear it is
impossible. " Fleas are not lobsters, -- their
" eyes," swore Sir Joseph Bankes, according to the
witty Peter Pindar ; and fleas will never be any-
thing but fleas or Fenians, nor is it possible to make
decent traitors of such poor stuff.