MICHAEL DAVITT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3056, 12 April 1881, Page 2

MICHAEL DAVITT.

Michael Davitt, is the son of a tenantfarmer, and was born at Straid, near Casdebar, in the county of Mayo, in 1846. His father was evicted in 1851, and the family went to reside in England They settled in Lancashire, where they lived for twenty-five years. Young Michael weut to work in a cotton-mill at Haslingden, near Manchester, at the age of ninerand after a year's work bis right arm was crushed by the machinery, necessitating its amputation at tbe elbow. This mishap made Davitt turn his attention to his own education; and for five years after he attended—though a Roman Catholic—the Wesleyan school in Haslingden, and at fifteen was employed there as assistant letter-carrier in the eervice of tbe post office. Leaving that occupation and locality in 1863, he became a commercial traveller, and in that capacity was connected with the Fenian movement. He dealt largely in firearms, the police gracing many of his consignments

into Ireland. On tbe 14th of May, 1870, Davitt was arrested in London, and waa tri"d at the Old Bailey on a charge of treason telouy, auJ on the 17th of July, 1870, was sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude. Davitt was in penal servitude until the 19th of December, 1877, when, after having been seven years pnd seven months in prison, he was accorded a ticket-of-leave and discharged. He has still, therefore seven years to remain in prison. Davitt went on a lecturing tour through England and Scotland, speaking in London, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow, and on ihe 21st of June, 1878, he was examined before a Royal Commission as to the working of the Penal Servitude Act, and the evidence given by him occupies 15 pages of a Blue Book. On July 23, 1878, he went to America, delivered a course of lectures, and with John Devoy matured the entire programme of the Land League and the present agitation. He landed again in Ireland on the 21st of December, 1878, and immediately set to work to spread among the poor and discontented migratory laborers of tbe weßt the germs of the existing movement. Davitt was arrested on November 19, 1879, for some violent speeches, notably one at Balla on the 3rd of November. He was conveyed to Sligo Gaol, and having been charged with Messrs Killeen and Daly, kept in custody from Wednesday till Tuesday, was liberated on bail. The investigation lasted over a week, and Davitt and the others were committed for trial. At the subsequent Assizes at Carrick-on-Shannon the venue waa changed to the Queen's Bench, on the application of the Crown prosecutor; but the trial never came on. On the 23rd of July last year, his health being in a precarious condition, he went to America and delivered a course of lectures through the United States. He intended bringing back his mother and sisters, who bad gone to America during his imprisonment. He, however, decided, to leave them there a year or two longer, until times improved in Ireland, and he again landed in this country on the 31st December last, after establishing branches of the Land League in evry city, and brought borne a large amount of money. It was his intention to engage in tbe wholesale tea trade in Dublin, but he abandoned that idea for a more favorable opportunity, and took to literary work and lecturing in England. He is 'the correspondent of the Boston Pilot, and of an Irish-American paper in New York, and also occasionally contributes to Irish propincial papers. On Sunday last Davitt was at Borris, in the county of Carlo w, where he delivered perhapa the most violent speech he has ever uttered in public. On Monday he waa at Armagh, where he appeared to have been successful even in gaining the adhesion of the Orangemen to the Land League programme. On Tuesday night he was provided, as " a distinguished stranger," with a seat under the gallery of the House of Commons. He returned to Dublin on Wednesday to be arrested the following day.