The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-05-13
Hartford Courant.l
The Men Who Stabbed Ireland.
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Inc M6u w uO OJdOO0u 1I0ldaOs
The responsible heads of the land league on
both sides of the ocean have met the terrible
calamity that has befallen them as brave, sin.
cere and humane men might be expected to.
Whatever hands are red with blood, theirs
are clean. To say that they are indirectly
responsible for it, as some of our contempora.
ries do, is to commit it gross injustice. As well
hold George Washington, John Hancock and
Sam Adams responsible for the excesses COM
mitted on the Hadson by the cattle-lifting
bushwhackers of revolutionary times, or the
statesmen and generals who saved the Union
for the peculiar exploits of "Sherman's bum
mers" The land league did not produce the
disturbance and irritation of Ireland; it was
the chronic and increasing disturbance and ir-
ritation in Ireland that produced the land
league. Even if we are not in sympathy with
Parnell Dayitt, Dillon and their political asso-
sociates, let us be fair to them. They are not
fools or lunatics, and they have had no part or
lot, either directly or indirectly, in this coward
ly and idiotic assassination.
If the hands of the leaders of the Fenian or
ganization are equally clear of the blood shed
in Phoenix Park last Saturday, they should
lose no time in holding them up for public in
spec ton. Suspicion points more and more
strongly their way Supposing the murder TO
have been committed by their agents under or
ders from the headquarters of the organization
we have at once an Ineligible motive-the de-
sire, to wit, to prevent an imminent reconcilla-
ton and pacifcation that would have defeated
all their plans and left them without an occu-
patton. Assuming this theory OF the crime to
be correct it was just such desperate act as
desperate men OF low order of intellect might
have been expected to resort to.
Still another hypothesis has been put forward
that Mr. Burke was the man the assassins
were after, and that the killing Of Lord Fred
erick Cavendish was an accident, due to the
mere chance of their finding him in Mr..
Burke's company. In support of this sugges-
ton, it is urged that while Lord Frederick had
landed in Ireland only the day before, Mr..
Burke had been there for many years; that
during much of the time he had been the pow
er behind the throne, and had been known and
detested as such: that his body was more Sc
verely gashed and hacked than Lord Freder-
ick's, and that the indications are that the lat
ter lost his life trying to defend his companion.
Mr.. Sexton is quoted as saying that public
feeling in Ireland has from time to time identi-
fed Mr.. Burke with many harsh measures;
Patrick Grove, of internal machine notoriety,
speeks OF him as thoroughly obnoxious to the
Fenians,'"a bitter and malignant enemy OF the
Irish race' and some evidently well-informed
Irishman writes, over the signature OF An Old
Observer" to the New York Sun:
The under secretary has long been marked man,
and was perhaps the most unpopular official IN Ire
land. he was Roman Catholic OF the County Gar
way aged 81 and heir to the baronetcy of Burke OF
Glyusk IHe was grandnephew Of the late Cardina
Wfseman and was educated at the Roman Catholic
college of Oscott of which the eminenJ divine was
for some time president. On leaving Oscott in lS47
he was appointed at the age of eighteen to clerk
ship in the chief secretarys office. by his country
man, Sir Thomas RedingteD, the then under secre
tary and commenced his career of uppopularity by
being the clerk who opened Smith O'Briens port
manteau in 1S4S and ransaced his private letters.
He continued to improve on this ausplcious begin
ming and made himself so generally and unscrupu-
lousy useful that on the retirement of Captain Lar
com he was appointed under secretary, position he
has since filed OF course the succeeding chief Sec
retaries being almost entirely dependent on the per-
manent secretary for coaching in their duties at all
events at the start the foreign and colonial secre
tares are the permanent secretaries in their de-
partments Mr.. Burke was in a large measure OF
controlling power in the government OF Ireland.
On the other hand it is asserted that, while
Lord Frederick Cavendish was riding through
the streets of Dublin with Earl Spencer, re-
peated and finally successful efforts were made
by man or men in the crowd to find out
which Of the gentlemen in the carriage was the
new chief secretary circumstance that, if
true, is certainly significant and does not fit in
to the hypothesis just noted,
Whoever and whatever the murderers are,
they have done Ireland a mischief that the
lives of ten thousand wretches of their stripe
could not expiate.