as to the increased price of meat proved lamentably true. Although the fear of approaching contagion drove the farmers to send unusually large numbers of cattle for slaughter-and, therefore, the supply, instead of falling off, increased the price of meat rose enormously. Instead of eightpence or ninepence, tenpence or a shilling became the common price for a pound of meat; and from this rate it has never since declined. With this increase came a corresponding and more justifiable rise in the price of milk, especially in London. The 7,000 cattle which, as our table shows, had been attacked in the London district up to the end of the year were almost entirely milch-cows; the London dairies were drained of their supply, the London cow-yards emptied. Of course, an immediate rise in the price of milk followed, and a dislocation of the London milk trade. The dairymen became importers instead of producers. The railways began to develop new facilities for the carriage of milk from the country into London; and then were first to be noticed on a large scale what now may be seen on every railway line, trucks loaded with great broad-bottomed cans bringing up the produce of country meadows for the use of the metropolis. No disinterested person can regret this at least among the results of the plague. No one who has once entered a London cow-yard, and been conscious of its many shortcomings, and of the unhealthy look of the animals within it, will deny that in changing the source of the metropolitan milk supply, the cattle plague was a blessing.

The remaining history of the disease, and of the interesting economical questions to which it gave rise, will be better treated when we come to speak of the year 1866.

CHAPTER XII.

State of Ireland in 1865-The Fenian Conspiracy: Origin of the Brotherhood: Its rapid Development after the Cessation of the American War: Its Constitution and Laws: Measures of Lord Wodehouse: Arrest of Stephens, the Head Centre; His Escape from Richmond Bridewell: Fenian Prisoners tried by Special Commission: Case of Thomas Luby-Reflections on Irish Disaffection.

AMONG the results of the American War, that which came home most rapidly and strikingly to the English mind was the organisation of the Fenian conspiracy. Ireland has suffered for centuries from chronic discontent, the effect of many causes, which may, perhaps, be summed up in one-that of a radical incompatibility of temper between the ruler and the ruled, the Saxon and the Celt. Often, as is well known, this chronic disease has become acute; discontent has flamed out into civil war, fanned by some favouring breeze of circumstance. Sometimes the occasion has been trouble in England, as in Cromwell's day,-for, according to the often quoted maxim, "England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity;" sometimes, as in 1798, and partly in 1848, it has been the prevalence of revolutionary doctrine abroad; sometimes it has been misfortune at home, as was partly the case in 1848; and now, in 1865, it was the sudden cessation of a long war across the Atlantic. Every American knows

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well the extent of the Irish element" in the United States. For years the stream of Irish emigration has flowed westward, and emptied itself into the Hudson river. In 1871, there were close upon five millions of Irish Catholics in the United States, the bulk of whom had fled from home as a plague, and bitterly attributed their expatriation to British mis-government. Of the discontented Irish, the most discontented have long looked on New York as their home-or rather, not as their home, but as a convenient base of operations from which to sail back again to the conquest of Ireland. The end of the war threw hundreds of Irishmen out of work. It mattered little whether they had fought for North or South; hatred of "the Saxon," and the chance of making a display in the cause of Erin, were strong bonds of union. Hence arose the Fenian Brotherhood-a military conspiracy, with civil branches, having for its object "the overthrow of the Queen's government in Ireland, and the establishment of the Irish Republic." No one seems to know quite certainly the origin of the name "Fenian;" but the commonest explanation, and a very suitable one, is that it is derived from Fingal, or Finn, or Froinn, one of the heroes of Irish legend, and well known from the relics of his name in the north of Ireland and from the part he plays in Macpherson's "Ossian." At all events, it is now notorious that the name of the organisation was suggested by John O'Mahony, of New York, a Celtic scholar of some repute, who had to fly from Ireland, with his life in his hand, in "'48," for an abortive attempt to excite the Tipperary peasantry to armed resistance. Whether or not the Fenians claim kindred with Fingal, their object was to bring back Ireland under the rule of its own people; and this, not by lawful means, not by Home Rule agitation and pressure on Parliament and public opinion, but by force. "There is no time to be lost," wrote one of the leaders (John O'Leary, afterwards putative editor of the Irish People); “this year—and let there be no mistake about it-must be the year of action.

. . The flag of Ireland, of the Irish Republic, must this year be raised." "I was told,” said a witness at one of the Fenian trials, "that arms were to be given to carry out those objects. . . They told me that the Fenians in Ireland were to be officered by French officers; and since the war was over in America, that they were to be officered by Federal officers." Again, a Thomas Mooney wrote, "We have an Irish leader in John O'Mahony, backed by 50,000 veteran Irish soldiers in America ready for the word." These are a few indications, taken at random from many documents which were produced at the trial of various prisoners. But the most striking of all, that which illustrates most vividly the nature and extent of the organisation and the intensity of the feeling underlying it, is that which was called an "Address to the Brotherhood all over the world." The principal portions of it are as follows:

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Brothers! We deem it prudent to withhold, for the present, from publication in the newspapers certain important resolutions, having special reference to the revolutionary movement in Ireland, which have been submitted to this Convention by the Head Centre of the Fenian

A.D. 1865.].

hardly protested; the crowds which collected together and followed the police on their return attempted no rescue. Nor was any greater difficulty encountered by the Cork police, who made a descent upon the Fenians in that city at the same time. Indeed, the Irish police in general showed themselves very active at this juncture, and many of the southern towns were the scene of interesting captures. Each important arrest led to more, or gave a direction to the search, from the discovery of papers compromising other people. One person, for instance, who gave his name as Charles O'Connell, but whose real name was Rafferty," was arrested as he entered Queenstown harbour in a steamer from New York. He had been an American captain; and his papers gave an illustration of the aid which Fenian agents had received from officers of high rank on the Federal side a kind of set-off against the conduct of England towards blockade-runners and Confederate cruisers. O'Connell had numerous "passes" signed by American generals and others; one, a very significant one, may be given :

"Executive Department, Indianopolis.

"May 6, 1864. "The bearer hereof, J. Daly,* wishes to visit the army of the Cumberland and the Mississippi departments. He requests he may be permitted for the purpose of visiting the Irish soldiers therein.

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Morton, Governor of Indiana." The document given above shows what was meant by the term "Head Centre." There were at this time two Head Centres-one in the United States (John O'Mahony), and one in Ireland (James Stephens). This latter a personage of the highest importance in the brotherhood—was known under many names; his commonest designations being "J. Powell," and "James Stephens;" though he occupied his comfortable house in the neighbourhood of Dublin under the name of James Corbett. Stephens, it ought to be related, had passed three years in the country previous to the establishment of the Irish People. He had traversed and re-traversed the country in a variety of disguises, and under a cloud of aliases, sounding the peasantry as to their readiness for rebellion, and succeeding even in corrupting the loyalty of small portions of the Irish regiments. He went so far as to try his capacity for "organisation" by making overtures to the Orangemen of the North; but his advances were coldly repelled, and he found it useful to confine his illdirected efforts to the other provinces. In these his fiery eloquence and bland persuasiveness prevailed with the lower part of the population. It is historically probable that, if the funds which afterwards poured in in such abundance from America had arrived in time, or had even been utilised when they did arrive, for the purpose for which they were contributed, there might have been a darker end to the disloyal conspiracy. But the movement was doomed to failure almost from its inception. When the long-threatened blow was on the eve of being struck, discontent broke out amongst the rank and file of

• This was one of the aliases of Stephens.

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the insurrectionary battalions. Hundreds of men who had worn the American uniform, and won their epaulettes on the battle-field, were starving in the garrets and kennels of Dublin and London; whilst the great Head Centre and financial fountain himself was living in an extravagant manner, and denying himself no indulgence. Disgusted at their treatment, about fifty of the immigrants proposed to end the matter promptly by shooting him, and precipitating a rebellion on their own responsibility. Stephens was warned of the plot, and took steps to pacify his infuriated subordinates. He distributed money amongst them freely, and to this sudden outburst of judicious liberality he probably owed his life. This generosity came too late, for America unexpectedly ceased to send supplies, and the old murmurings broke out again with redoubled vehemence. This it was which broke the back-bone of the conspiracy and saved Ireland, let us trust for the last time, from the horrors of civil war. The police discovered that this James Corbett was the man they were in search of, and accordingly surrounded his house early one morning. They met with little resistance, though Stephens and his friends were well supplied with arms. In the same house with Stephens three other prominent Fenians were arrested, one of them being the "Charles J. Kickham" who had been looked for ever since the razzia upon the Irish People newspaper. When the prisoners were brought up for examination, Stephens protested most indignantly against the very existence of the law under which he was to be tried; he refused to take measures for his defence, and defied punishment. As it happened, and as perhaps he had guessed beforehand, he never came in want of legal assistance or in danger of punishment. Bolts and bars could not hold him." He escaped from Richmond Bridewell on the night of November 24, and no amount of police activity or Government reward could secure his recapture. The naked truth is, that at a meeting of the Fenian Secret Council, held in Townsend Street, in Dublin, on the morning of November 22, it was decided to spend £250 in rescuing the imprisoned chief. The service had been offered, the reward was punctually paid, and the " General," as his followers called him, was rescued from his gaolers. The deliverance was effected in the middle of a night of rain and storm. Stephens' cowardice on this occasion dealt the first blow at his supremacy. Irish-American soldiers could not conceal their contempt for a man who, in his nervous panic, dropped the revolver with which he was furnished to fight his way, if necessary. It was plainly impossible that an escape of the kind, managed simply by unlocking seven of the prison doors one after another, could have been effected without collusion with some official or other. So the Government thought, and suspended the Governor of the gaol, and got Byrne, the turnkey, committed for trial. But Stephens never came back. It was not without reason that he had defied English punishments.