MARK TWAIN ON ST. PATRICK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XI, Issue 173, 13 July 1876, Page 4

MARK TWAIN ON ST. PATRICK.

The following letter was lately read at the supper of the Knights of St. Patrick, in Hartford, Conn.: — Hartford, March 16. Richard M' Cloud, Eeq. Dear Sir, — I am very sorry tbat I cannot be with the Knights of St Patrick to-morrow evening. In this Centennial year we ought all to find a peculiar pleasure in doing honor to the memory of a man whose good name has endured through fourteen centuries. We ought to find pleasure in it for the very reason that at this time we naturally have a fellow-feeling for such a man. He naturally wrought a great work io bis day. He found Ireland a prosperous republic, and looked about him to see if he might find some useful thing to turn his band to. He observed tbat the President of that Republic was in the habit of sheltering his great officials frhm deserved punishment, so he lifted up bis staff and Bmote him, and he died. He found that the Secretary of War had been so unbecomingly economical a.c to have laid up 12,01)0 dols, a year

out of a salary of 8,000 dole., and he killed him. He found that the Secretary of the Interior always prayed over every separate and distinct barrel of salt beef that wbb intended for the unconverted savage, and then kept that beef himself, so he killed him also. He found that the Secretary of the Navy knew more about handling suspicious claims than he did about bandling a sbip, co he at once made an end of bim. He found that a very foul Private Secretary had been engineered through a sham trial, so he destroyed him. He discovered that the Congress which pretended to prodigious virtue was rery anxious to investigate an ambassador who had dishonored the country abroad, but was equally anxious to prevent the appointment of any spotless man to a similar post; tbat this Congress had no God but party, no system of morals but party policy; no vision but a bat's vision, and no reason or excuse for existing anyhow. Therefore he massacred that Congress to the last man. When he had finished his great work, he said in his figurative way—" Lo, I have destroyed all the ; reptiles in Ireland." St. Patrick had no politics; his sympathies lay with the right— that was politics enough. When he came across & reptile he forgot to enquire whether he was a democrat or a republican, but simply exalted his staff, and " let him have it." Honored be hia name. I wish we had him here, to trim up for the Centennial. His staff, which was the Bymbol of real, not of sham reform, is idle. However, we still have with us the symbol of truth — George Washington's little hatchet — for I know they've buried it. Yours truly, S. L. Clemens.