The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1898-01-29


alone. 1T is a fact incontroyertible,"
says Lord Holland, that the people
were driven by free quarters and the ex-
cesses of the soldiery, which were such
as are not permitted in civilized warfare,
even in the enemy's country Lord
Mora told the house of lords that he had
been himself the witncss of TEXTURES and
brutalities exceeding the worst stories of
the Spanish inquisition. and that Gin
part CT the country as quiet and as free
from disturbance as the city of London"
Plowden estimates at 1000 the number
of men, women and children murdered
or driven from their homes within one
syear in the small county of Armagh
alone, by the new Orange banditti, wno,,
the plotters of the union had conjured
up to make the union OF Catholics and
ProtestaNts impossible. 1t is probable
that in this single county more defense
less Catholics were massacred or burned
out of their homes, than were inundated
of French aristocrats in all the ctatca,lx
of France, CT in all the guiilotina,le5 Of
the Place de la Repubiique. Neither age
nor SEX we are told by the very gov
ernor of Armagh, Lord Gosford, nor
even acknowledged Innocence as to any
guilt, is sufficient to excite mercy, much
less to afford protection. The only crime
which the objects of this ruthless per-
secution are charged with is simply a
profession OF the Roman Catholic veil
gion." The leaders Of the Orange ban
ditti were themselves magistrates, and
parliament, instead o. repudiating their
aXcs sses, passed an indemnity bill in 1896
giving them Il wholesale abaoiution il
they had unprecedented suspected per-
sons without due authority. sent Sis
pected persons cut of the nyd4m. en-
tered houses. or done divers other acts
not justtiablc by law" l'ouquier lie
Tinvile in his bloodicst hour had nor
more to answer for to humanity than
the infamous Lord Carhanptcn in his
dragonades in the north. Soldiery
We're let loose on the peoples homes, at
free quarters with unlimited liceu Z,
for expectation, rape and torture; men
who refused to tell where their arms
We're concealed (for the good reason in
most cases that they had no arms to
conceaD were held in agony on the bare
soles of their feet on the sharEened
points OF pegs, or "pickets," had their
heads covered with pitch-caps of boi!iEE,
NJ. ,,it
dragged away by the torturers. OF were
again and again put through the agonics
OF stranSulatIon by the ingenious device
CT half-hanging-untiI these atrocities
wrung from the commander-in-chief, Sir
Ralph Absrcromby, the indignant con-
fession that ''within these twelve months
every crime, every cruelty hat could be
committed by Cosslcks or Calmucks has
been committed here; and later on, the
famous rebuke that the army had sunk
into a state of RIGHTEOUSNESS which
would render them formidable to every
one but an enemy But Abercromby
went down as FitZwilliam had gone
down, before the bowls of a triumphant
ascendancy, The great soldier was dis
missed from his command as slmmarily
as the enlightened vcercy from the
castle. Lord Camden" wrote the hero
of Egypt, has betrayed the situation of
commander-in-chief, he has thrown The
army into the hands of faction and
made it Il tool under their direction"
And all this saturnalia of the asrendan.y
was not the outburst of a panic-strjckpn
hour but the calculated development uf
a plan of campaign. the "well-traineI
measures" by which a premature out
break was to be forced and the union
carried. Fox has pledged his credit as
kings Prime minister to the statement
that he had documentary evidence TO
prove that the crueties had not been
resorted to on the spur of the moment,
but had bsen deliberately resolved upon
long before fer certain purpose. ""Mr
Fit did IT. in as true sense as if his
own hand had pulled the rorei and hca.
ed the pitch caps.
Only one disgrace remained to bc adj
ded to the insamies Of the official ins,iga-
tors CT the reGe Ion of '9S. and that was
the coWard:ce in the field even gl,s,ser
than their fc:aeiy before there were any
pixies to be faced. There is nothing in
the history of British arms more humil-
iating than the series of ignomnious
thrashings large bodies of trCops re-
ceived at the hands OF lcadarlcss and
half-armed peasants in Wexford, unless
it was the hesitation with which an army
OF $4,000 troops including the Guards of
England. hung for weeks on the TANKS
of single French battalion subsequently,
in the west, before they pluclied up
courage to demand their surrender. OF
course, the ignominy of the actual de-
feats in the field fell principally upon the
Orange gentry and yeomanry. One night,
while Col. Saunderson was making one
of his war-orations during the home rule
debate, Mr.. Gladstone made another of
his brief contributions to history which
may stand as a fit pendant to "Mr. Pitt
did it." Col. Saunderson was illus
trating the dreadful and triumphant
character of the war the Orange warriors
undertook to wage against the home
rule parliament by brarpinp heavenbie,,