Evening star., 1900-04-07
An Ardent Irishman's View of Vic
toria's Journey.
SURE TO PLEASE THE ANGLO-IRISH
But the Mass of the People En-
tireIy Indifferent.
KOW-TOWING TO ROYALTY
Copyright, 1900, i,y scumas MacManusl

| Copyright, 1900. 10y Seunas MacManusl
! Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
DONEGAL ireland, March - 1900
In England there is an astouiShinyy nu-
merous bourgeois body Of people who liter
\ ally ido,tze royalty, who think Of their queen
| with bated breath and 10 whom the news
| paper echo Of court tattle is more abserbingly
interesting than the widest seusationaIism:
aud the people real. believe that. let the
| Irish and the remainder of the world affect
what outward show OF Indifference they
please. they have lin their innards'' a wor-
shtpful love for England's royalty and an
Unsuitable thirst for tidings of queen and
court These people are convinced that II
we lrishmcn act our feelings prompt
when Victoria sets her sacred foot on Irish
SOIL, overwhelmed with gratitude for the
sublime favor shown US, the Irish nation
VIII PROSTATE itself upon the earth and
from the depths of its soul breathe Hal
Ielu1ah! And if We disappoint our En-
glish friends here they will sigh and saw
that We were burning TO do homage and did
hot 90 50 only because we have given our
consclences in bond TO the agitators.
SUCH is and will be the English view OF
the matter.
The Irish View.
AS regards the Irish view: In the first
place, the Anglo-1rish and Scotch-Irish COL
onies will, of course. receive their queen
for she Is their queem with acclamations-
acclamations prompted in many cases by
genuine delight at her coming and in just
as many Instances by mere hostility toward
| those who will not shout with them
And In addition to being greeted by her
own colonies in ireland (which form about
one-fifth of the popuationl ] foresea with
not little shametacedness that a portion
OF our own Irish people Will crave the op-
portunity of kow-tOwing to English row.
atty. This win be confined to a portion OF
the shopkeeping class In several of the
large towns. and will represent and voice
the sentiments probably of not more than
3 per cent of the Irish people In Ireland as
elsewhere, decay of principle is found in
the shopkeeping community, when the rest
Of the nation is in the enjoyment Of lusty
and vigorous health.
Now, giving a generous allowance of 25
per cent of the population of Ireland to
Anglo-lrish. Scotch-Irish and the un-Irish
portion of the shopkeepers, We have three
fourths Of the people still to account for.
Of these the major part will regard the
royal visit either with philosophic amuse-
| ment or complete indifference and the minor
portion with bitterness of heart. For, the
former will say:
Well, SO far We hear. this is very
estimable old English lady who has como
over. Though we hate the English collect
lively, we can tolerate them individually.
She, or any other English lady. is free to
come to our island and to go when and how
peaceably.'
Too Long Put on.
The remainder will say: I'VE cannot be
Indifferent. We cannot be amused. We can
not be tolerant of this visit-the visit of a
woman who, as figurehead of the British
government, reminds us that for more than
half a century she, while assuming and pre-
Stunning maternal interest in us, has sat
upon her throne, and witnessed, unmoved,
the appalling sights that attend the execu-
tion of her national laws in our country:
who saw the roof tree riven in the homes Of
our poor and the hearth made deSoate by
her officers, and pleading old women and
old men and shrieking babes left homeless
and shelterless on bare hllsides when the
sleet knives pierced the flesh and the March
winds searched the bones of them: who
signed almost every second year of her
reign a new coerCiVe law TO curb the men
tai growth of her Irish children who saw
a free press denied, free speech debarred
and the right of peaceful public assembly
forbidden us; who saw thousands of the
nobleSt and worthiest in the iand-alike ed
itor and priest, parliamentary representa-
tive and other public man-cast into prison
and kept there without public charge and
without trial; who saw half a million of
our people perish of hunger whilst the corn
and the beef with which the land teemed
was being borne away from our ports and
sold to the stranger In order that a hand
ful of lords who lolled in London and in
Paris might get their pound OF flesh: who
saw four millions of Irelands children fee
from the land. as from a plague spot and
rush to the remotest corners of the earth,
preferring ship fever and exile or death to
EnSlands beneficent and ciyilizing rule at
home; who heard her own lawmakers ac-
knowledge to the public robbery OF upward
of one hundred million pounds sterling from
Ireland during her reign and barefacedly
refuse restitution; who. when her reign be-
gan, counted nearly nine millions of her
h,zra CHI ~,zIrz,
only four and a half millions. We cannot
feel tolerant of Victoria, Queen of Eng
lands visit. We cannot feel indifferent
And it is far from our hearts to feel
amused
No Public HostiIities Expected.
Nevertheless, those who make up this
section will not willingly make public dis
play Of the ill-wn they bear Englands
queen; they will rather consent to chafe In
quiet unless provoked to another course by
enemies who would try to make political
capital out of their silence.
AS it will be pleaded by superficial think
ers that chivalrous Ireland should show its
admiration of the woman, IL not of the
queen-urgtng the aggregation of womanly
and motherly qualities of which Victoria is
shining example-then for the millions
who will refuse to go out and do her public
honor, may answer in the probable words
which any other of these millions would
use in making answer:
Within a radius of six miles from my
home on the spur of the moment i can
count sixteen venerable women who
have borne their years with as much re-
spect. as much dignity, as much piety and
as much honor to womanhood as Victoria
has borne hers, women whose sufferings
have been as keen, whose crosses have been
as heavy, whose lines have been as heroic
as Queen Fictoria's, and whose silvered
hairs now entitle them to as much
reverence, respect and admiration even
a I'M -al rt-f.k
white cap instead of a crown-I shall even
hazard a bolder step and say that / know
more than one of these whose lives have
earned them more reverence, respect and
admiration than Victoria; yet we do not
turn out and shout when We find one OF
these women coming into fair!
Moreover, If we did so, these poor women
would be sorely mortified. Verbum sap"