The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-09-19
The British Government De-
nounced for BarbarouS
Methods.
THREATS THAT MEAN BLOOD.
Judge Cooney and Thomas Bannerman
Say That Talk Must Give
Way to Deeds.

Tory ears would tingle had they been
present last night to hear the opinions OF
Irish American citizens expressed in I'M
mistakable language in Knights of the
Red Branch Hall. Those opinions were
not directed against England and the
English people, but against the British
Government, which threw upon the shores
of America DR.. Gallagher and other polit-
ical prisoners wrecked in body and driven
insane by barbaric cruelty.
Such was the story that was recited last
night by earnest Irishmen, whose indigna-
ton voiced itself in the plainest and most
direct Saxon.
DR.. NJ. G. o'Toole called the
meeting to order and spoke of a
proposition to call public meeting for
the purpose of collecting funds for the re-
lief of the amnested prisoners.
R. G. OConnor opposed any appeal to
others outside of the Irish race.
1.-The Irish people could always do pretty
handsomely on occasions Of that kind.
England to-day holds up her hands in
holy horror wnen anything approaching
a stick of dynamite or a grain of giant
powder is found in possession of an Irish
man, wherever he may reside, and the
charge is made that he is engaged in a
conspiracy to blow the British empire to the
place where we would all like TO see it go, ="
added Mr.. O'ConnoT.
The speaker went on to tell about the
barbarous manner in which the English
Government had always treated Irish po-
litical prisoners in particular ana the
Irish people generally. There was moth
ing, he said, but a trail of blood between
the two countries which had grown redder
and redder during two centuries of perse-
cution.
II made the heart sick to think of the
outrages on Irishmen by England in days
gone by, and it was not to be wondered at
when the Irishman, in the bitterness of
his heart, took the only means of reveng-
ing mseIf that civilization and the in
ventive genius of the age afforded him.
Mr.. O'Connor spoke of the bonn bard
ment OF Alexandria in Egypt only few
years ago, and the bonn bardment of Zan-
zi5ar quite recently.
"She is the bully of nations" continued
he, when she finds one that cannot strike
back. What matters it whether it is with
dynamite or with a cannon ball that she
destroys her foes2 She had lately refined
her cruelty, and not satisfied with wreck
ing the body, had wrecked the minds of
her political prisoners.
Those who were released from her
prisons the other day, after years OF suf-
ferilg and of torture, were broken in mind
we'll as in body and sent adrift into the
world with their intellects impaired by a
These poor men are totally unable to
take care OF themselves and l am sure the
generous impulses characteristic of the
Irish people will respond to their aid.
think that an appeal to the Irish societies
of this City and State Will be rewarded
with handsome sum. l am not in favor
of appealing to others"
General P. F. Walsh responded to a call
foI speech, in which he said that no one
questioned that 1t was the duty of Irish
men to extend relief to those victims of
English imprisonment who for thirteen
years had been subject to tortures which
had resulted in breaking down the health
of all and wrecking the intellect of two.
at is sad to think" ne added, "that in
cause that has ennobled men in other
lands the iron despotism of England metes
out the most inhuman punishment to Ire
land. In days gone by, wheE the sword
and the torch and the dungeon and the
scaffold were resorted to, those punish
ments-the sword of Cromwell and the
scaffolds of 1798-were more humane than
the hellish punishments in England's
prisons to-day.
81 do not think anything can be gained
by public expression on those subjects.
We have appealed and appealed and pro-
tested and protested against this barbarity,
yet it is still carried out"
The general closed by advising active
measures of relief
UAdAOuCy-uOl Iu6 senator Oh
the same name-made brief but eloquent
speech. He said that as the soldiers of
the people were the wards of the Nation,
those prisoners whose only crime had been
their unsurpassed devotion to their coun-
try-those mental and physical wrecks
should be the wards of the Irish people
who should take PRIDE in seeing that for
the future they should want for nothing
He was opposed to holding a public
meeting, because the time was not oppor-
tune to get up resolutions denounciug
England. GOD knows we have done that
long enough. There are other prisoners
still there. suffering just as badly as those
men who fol some unaccountable reason
at this time were given their freedom
Judge Robert Ferral followed in a
speech denouncing the British Govern
ment, and saying that the whole civilized
world should rise up and in the name of
civilization should protest against it,
Judge NJ. Cooney's remarks were to the
effect that the time for speechmaking by
patriotic Irishmen had gone by and that
the time for action had come. The only
effective speeches were of the kind made