The Irish standard., 1896-09-05
Said to Have Been Seen After
Being Reported -. 49,. ~ s. g. 80
-. (
DC0Os

n /,
i lady, with sparkling grey eyes and an ami
mated winsome fact upon which Time has
wrought very deep burrows. In converse
ton she is clever and witty, and the listen
or can detect no impairment of her mental
faculties. Since she was assaulted and
robbed, near her estate, year ago last
April, however, the blow which she re-
ceiyed at the back of her head has troubled
her considerably. She suffers almost con-
slant pain from it and complains that her
memory of events has been apprec:ably af-
fected since that time Mrs. Parnell has
furnished written statement in connec-
ton with her plans and her family, and
with especial reference to certain ideas
which she formed regarding the fate of her
most distinguished son, the champion Of
Ireland
within very few weeks shall leave
the United States, never to RETURN" said
Mrs. Parnell. II was born in Philadelphia
Of q markedly. patriotic family, and the en-
!. vironment Of my whole life has been that
.'of a strong and enduring patriotism Above
and reverence for America and American
= institutions nurtured by my birth and eur
!. rouhdfngs, an undying loVef2nd hope for
Ireland and the Irish peopi es.thafs was. in
spired within me by my huaband and by
Z my son, Charles Stewart Pdrnell, Of whom
Z. they say. He is no more! Thus have /
vaci,ated for many years between the land
1 OF my birth and rearing and the land
which was made to pulsate for many years
with a thWarted hope by my son whose
disappearance from that mournful arena
has meant 50 much and will always con-
tinue to mean SO much for Ireland
Much as love America, my heart turns
to Ireland, for there live the five children
who have been left to me out of family of
eleven. I have not been in Ireland since
. 1892, when | visited the grave that. is said
! toscontain the body of my son.
/ IF the body which reposes in that grave
be that OF my son, Charles Stewart Parnell,
then l am firm and answering in the be-
lief that he was the victim of British malice
Which instigated his murder in order to
remove from the field the greatest cham
pion of Irish freedom, and thus clear the
way for that species of perpetual bondage
, carried Oh by oppression which was re-
newed in Ireland from the very day of his
disappearance. / was in America at the
!, time my son died, but l have been often
tod since that no one who knew the face
Of Charles Stewart Pernell was allowed to
see him after ne was said to have died. I
'haFe a letter front his wife, which tells
me that even she did not see the body after
his supposed death and was forcibly kept
from seeing. she wrote that, on the night
before ne is supposed to have died, Parne,l
had complained OF rheumatism in his left
arm. She did not see him after he had re-
tired that night. But the physicians WHO
examined the body, from the sight of which
every one VINO had known Parnell was kept,
pronounced that he had died of rheumatism
OF the heart. Who ever heard Of :rheuma-
ttsm travelling from the left arm to the
heart and killing man in one night?
l. There was a reason for all this. Eth
er Charles Stewart Parnell was the VIC
) tim OF an English assassin, who so mu-
ttlated the body that it would have been
Impossible for his friends to have looked
upon it without corning suspicious, or
Charles Stewart did not die at all, and the
body OF another man was substituted for
his in his coffin, while he himself dis
appeared.
I firmly believe that my son is alive
today. This belief is shared by some of
my children and by many Of my friends
who knew and loved him before his dis
appearance. An Irish lady of very high
standing and character and a very old
friend OF my family has written to me
that not long after he was supposed to
have been buried, she herself saw Charles
Stewart Parnell standing within the
shadow Of vault in the cemetery sadly
/ watching the friends of his other days
while they covered with flowers the
grave which the world imagines to be
his. She was so overcome that she sank
back fainting upon one Of the cemetery
benches, and when she recovered her
seaf my son had disappeared.
Many circumstances combine to add
to my determined belief that my son
Gives. There are two ways OF accounting
Tor his disappearance. The first is that,
having exhausted all his means in assist
ing the Irish-and indeed, he was f25,OO0
in debt when his death is said to have
taken place-and saddened and overbur-
dsned by the undeserving disgrace which
had befallen him he resolved to Eolun-
tarlly disappear after devising means to
make 1t appear that he had really died.
The other method by which account
for his disappearance is that he was
seized and spirited away by religious en-
sthusiasts. At all events, am perfectly
confident in my own mind that he lives,
and ] shall, indeed, need not say, take
such steps ais are possible to confirm my
opinion when I reach Ireland
81 am selling Ironsides because am
poor. I shall probably get about $4,000
for the estate. and this shall take With
me to Ireland in order to assist my chill
dren." s. 2