The Portland daily press., 1868-03-16
The Democracy at City Han.

Among all the Irishmen at City Hall Satur-
day evening, there were very few who follow
| ed their glorious compatriot, Sheridan, at Win
chester, or belonged to Meagher's Irish Brig
| ade. Had those stern patriots been there, they
would not have endured with patience the
| ISLANDERS and reproaches heaped on their great
| leaders. 1t is one of the most unaccountable
| circumstances in contemporaneous history
| that our Irish fellow-citizens will rush to CITY
Hall or elsewhere, most of them in the honest
garb of laboring men, and cheer the leaders of
party whose central and primary doctrine is
that fd6o1Sng men are not so good and are not
entitled to the same rights as those who live
without toll nay, to cheer men who hold that
rebel gentleman is better than loyal ldborinq
man. Do the Irishmen who listened to Mr..
Fitzgerald, Saturday evening, know that there
is not rebel in the South who may not be in
stantly restored to all his rights, privileges and
franchises, if he will simply concede that the
industrial classes, who were loyal during the
war, may enjoy The same rights as himself :?
The Irish of Portland are deceived by unscru-
pulous demagogues, who are leading them I'M
der false pretences in direction exactly con-
trary to their own interests
There is not much to be said of the meeting
except that it was in marked degree disorder
y. 1t is perhaps not inappropriate to get
drunk in order to make the mind receptive of
Democratic truth, and there were large num-
Der of persons present who had not neglected
that precaution Young men in the rear of
the hall found it pleasant relaxation from the
labor of attending to the speakers to "expecto-
rate" in a free and easy manner upon persons
passing down stairs. We presume they were
the same young gentlemen whom we saw few
nights since unbending their over-taxed ener-
gies by snow-balling a woman who was pass
ing up Congress street, accompanying that ex-
ercise with noises that would have been diabol-
ical had they not been SO strongly suggestive
of that made by very young calf
The speakers were Mr.. G. p. Kimball. Gen.
Anderson and Mr.. Fitzgerald. The latter
gentleman was fresh from the scene of "the
great Democratic victory" in New Hampshire,
and it is no wonder his remarks were rambling
and incoherent to such an extent that he for
got even to make the rem test reference to the
political contest in the Granite State. Gen.
Anderson did very we'll. He must have made
Antony's speech over Caesars dead body
special study. He counseled peaceful behavior
in precisely the same way that the willy old
Roman did-by making speech nicely calcu-
lated to excite the most reckless conduct. He
said in substance: "My friends advise you to
make no disturbance at the polls; it is true
that the policemen will thump your heads with
their billies, and probably shoot you without
the slightest provocation, but you must endure
it." Then the General went on for ten min
utes in the most inflammatory appeal ever
heard in Portland. The picture he drew of
the local Republican despotism ought to have
been accompanied bv display of skulls and
cross bones, blue flames, and the performance
of Mozart's Requiem or the Dead March in
Saul by the band. To crown all the gallant
General INDUCED in vague but awe inspiring
threats of fuGure vengeance We need not say
that General Anderson ridiculed and denounc-
ed Grant and other fighting Generals" for at
no time during the war did he make any secret
of his hostility to military men of that stamp.
Hon. Bion Bradbury was not present, but
sent letter.