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Southland Times, Issue 1204, 1 February 1870, Page 2

A very large meeting was held near Dublin to demand amnesty for the Fenian prisoners. The numbers attending were variously estimated at from 40,000 to 80,000, but nearly two-thirds of the population of the' capital wore the green in token of sympathy. The rast eon-— - course was perfectly orderly and goodhumoured, but some strong speeches were made; Mr Butt, for example, demanding whether "if the voice of that mighty multitude should fail, the Irish people were free?" and Mr Moore denouncing that " vile, hideous, usurped tyranny of national self-conceit and national self-will that called itself English public opinion," that "adulterated compound of sanctimonious hypocrisy and secret infidelity, half outward swagger and half- inherent flunkeyism," and so on. The resolutions, however, were temperate, asking the release of the prisoners as a measure of conciliation. Is it really as impossible for Irishmen to understand Englishmen as Englishmen to understand Irishmen ? Will they never see that to menace the British G-overnment-^-and these monster meetings are menaces — is to make it impossible for that Government to give way ? The time to release the Eenians is when Ireland shows symptoms of want of sympathy, not, indeed, with their end, so far as it was patriotic, but their method. A Parisian editor pestered a prominent official with offers of newspaper assistance. The minister endured it for some time, but finally replied : "My dear friend, you are mistaken ; if geese did . once save the capitol, it was not with their quills."