When I was holding a meeting, one of the audience kept interrupting me; so I invited him to come up on the platform and have it out.
"Now what is it, ye old blackguard," I said. "Speak out."
"Lord Char-less," says he, "ye're no man."
"We'll see about that," says I. "Why do you say so?"
"Lord Char-less," he said solemnly, "I remimber the time one of your family stood for th' county of Waterford, I was up to the knees in blood and whisky for a month, and at this iliction, begob, devil a drop of eyther have I seen."
The old man referred to the election of 1826, in which { 136} Lord George Beresford was beaten by Lord Stewart de Decies, an event which was partially instrumental in bringing about the emancipation of the Roman Catholics in 1829.
I have always preferred a hostile political meeting to a peaceable assembly; nor have I ever failed to hold a hostile audience except upon one occasion, during the York election. I had sent a speaker to occupy the attention of an audience, largely composed of my own countrymen, till I came, and by the time I arrived he had succeeded in irritating them beyond the power of pacification.
But one can hardly save oneself from one's friends. During the Waterford election I came one evening to Youghal and went to the hotel. I was peacefully smoking outside the inn, when a party of the boys came along, hooting me, and presently they began to throw stones. When I advanced upon them they ran away and were lost in the darkness. As I turned to go back to the hotel, a large missile caught me behind the ear, knocking me over.
Next morning I related the incident to one of my most enthusiastic supporters in the place.
"'Tis a disgrace," said I, "throwing stones in the dark. And as for that boy who made a good shot, if I could get hold of him I would scatter his features."
"Because," says he, "it was myself that threw that brick. An' didn't I get ye grand!" says he. "But ye're not hurted. Sure ye're not hurted, or I wudn't have told ye annything about it."
It wasn't disloyalty on his part. It was simply that he couldn't resist what he considered a joke.
The result of the polling was: Beresford, 1767; Esmonde, 1390; Longbottom, 446.
A salient characteristic of the Irish race is that they will not endure condescension towards them. They admire resolution and determination, and will submit to the sternest discipline if it is enforced upon them by a man who understands { 137} them and whom they respect. Conversely, they will yield nothing to weakness, and will return any assumption of superiority with hatred and contempt. Hence it is that the English have so often failed in their dealings with the Irish. In spite of the violence the Irish often exhibit in politics, their pride of race and pride in one another remain their notable characteristics.