Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1886-10-02
Michael Dayitt.
Communicated

Michael Davitt was born in 1876, in the
county of Mayo, Ireland. His father was
a farmer, who was among the many thou
sand victims of those wholesale eyictions
so familiar to every reader Of Irish history.
Mr.. Davitt was but four years old when he
saw his home destroyed. His father and
mother went to England and settled in the
little town of Washington, in Lancashire.
His mother was in the habit of frequently
repeating the details of their cruel eviction
from the little home of their f~orefathers.
The terrible scenes thus described were
deeply riveted in the mind of Davitt, and
have been the ~fiercest incentive to his eter-
nal hostility to landlordism.
When he was still a child he was sent to
0 mill to work, and there he was, by an
accident, deprived of his right arm. One
night he went to hear an address or an
Irish subject. The wrongs of Ireland were
narrated by an eloquent tongue. All the
latent forces and uniformed notions in Dav-
it's nature were at once crystalllzed, and
from that hour he became an ardent Irish
Nationalist. He soon became an active
member of the Fenian organization, and
took part IN the attempted seizure of Ches-
ter Castle. Unable to shoulder a rifle, with
LIS SlllEiC LIZ @ anu Va
cartridges in a bag made from a pocket
handkerchief.
On May Ia, 1870, he was arrested in Lon
don along with an Englishman named
John Wilson, a gunsmith of Birmingham,
and he was convicted mainly on the evil
dence of an informer named Corydon, and
sentenced to fifteen years penal seryltude.
1t is impossible for a man, no matter what
his nationality, to read DavittS account OF
the sufferings and ~indignities through
| which he had to pass without feelings of
burning anger. A rebel against laws
which had broken up his home and cast
| his father and mother out upon the road
| side which had impoverished and exiled
those nearest and dearest to him, he had
resorted to the only means within his
| reach to vindicate his wrongs. For doing
this he was sent, ike thousands OF his
fellow countrymen before and since, to
herd with murderers, pickpockets and
| burglars-cast into solitary confinement,
was oyerworked, underfed, and exposed to
| all changes of the seasons.
After seven years and seven months of
| this dread suffering he was released on
| Wednesday morning, December ~, 1877.
a series of enthusiastic receptions awaited
him. He proceeded on a lectur1ng tour
throughout England and Scotland. Later
| on he left for America, and landed in New
| York in August, 1878. Some of the leaders
among the Irish Nationalist in America
| had begun to see that the policy OF physl-
| cal force was impractieabie. a new depart
ure was proposed in the shape OF a reform
| of the land system of Ireland and the eS-
| Enlistment of a peasant proprietary. Dav-
III Joined hands with John Dewey and
| others in this scheme, and returned to Ire
- - 1raocb tho npw crusade
The first meeting of the newborn Land
League was held at Irishtown, in the
| county OF Mayo, on April 20, 1879. Fol-
nearly two years he was increasingly at
work with the zeal of another Peter the
Hermit in preaching the new gospel, in
making appeals for the relief of the
| distressed. and in organizing branches
of the Land League. In the month
of February, 1881, he was again arrested,
ON the oretense of having violated the con-
ditions of his ticket-of-leave, and without
any form of trial was consigned again to a
convict prison, where he remained for more
than a year. Upon his release he again re-
sumed the Gid work OF fighting against
laudlordism, and striving to amelorate the
condition of the laboring classes, as u
BANNED as ever. Neither dungeon MOI
chain MOI brutal treatment could subdue
the heroic spirit of Davitt. No wonder
That his name is dear to the Irish people
and svmpathizers with suffering humanity
tbe world over. Among the laboring classes
in England he is held in as much respect
almost as in Ireland. True as the sun TO
its course, or the magnet to the pole, the
faith of Davitt has never weakened in the
fuIl fruition of his hopes regarding the re-
generation of his native land.
When the great battle has been fought