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Mr. Parnell in America

Great meeting in Boston

Streets lined by State Regiments

(By Anglo-American Cable from Our Special Correspondent)

Boston, Tuesday.
The movement is undoubtedly rising, in this city at least. The enthusiasm is general and unmistakeable. 5,000 were present at last night's meeting, which was overcrowded. A supplementary meeting will be held tomorrow for those who failed to gain admission.

The streets were lined by 800 men of the State Regiment, and their officers, with arms and band, forming a guard of honour for Mr Parnell and his companions. They occupied the sidepaths from his hotel to the place of meeting, though it was snowing.

Two thousand five hundred dollars were given for tickets, and two thousand dollars were subscribed in five minutes on the platform in the great Music Hall, which was profusely decorated with flowers, and had a most brilliant appearance.

Mr Parnell, in the opening of his speech, promised to continue the agitation until the position became too difficult for the English Government, and forced it to some measure of permanent relief, which would make "the tillers owners of the soil".

This, he said, was now feasible by a greatly less outlay than is spent in cruel wars ravaging inoffensive populations, and destroying distant countries. The people must, he added, continue to maintain a stern but passive resistance, in spite of any overawing force.

Mr Wendell Phillips, the famous Negro advocate, made an eloquent speech, condemning the American Press which had opposed the movement, and urged that it should be energetically kept up. The cause was, he said, already half won when the victim had compelled the tyrant to listen. The land problem, he declared, is solving itself. It was tearing out the rivets which fasten it to feudalism, and which no jugglery of presumption could much longer retain. The American people would not, he added, by hindered by their Press from giving their sympathy and the expression of their feeling on a tyrannous system. No internal lines bounded justice and mercy. Government feared violence, but God meant that unjust rulers must be unsafe. Resistance against despotism is the righteous province of honest men.

Mr Parnell's teachings
(from the Morning Post)
While Mr Parnell is away on his American pilgrimage, unpleasant scenes, for which he must primarily be held responsible, are of almost daily occurrence in Ireland. We always feared that the dangerously suggestive advice which he gave to an ignorant and excitable peasantry would, sooner or later, result in bringing them into actual collision with the law and it would seem as if our worst fears will soon be verified. All the instincts of the Irish peasant are against the law.

From Wednesday, January 14, 1880