THE FENIAN EPIDEMIC.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 9, 11 April 1868, Page 3

THE FENIAN EPIDEMIC.

BY SAM JONKS. We all know that strange infectious diseases, affecting the bodies of men, are knocking loose round the world ; and the more thoughtful of us think that equally strange diseases, affecting the /mind, are quite as plentiful and infectious. I never put forward any opinions I may have dogmatically, because I have lived long enough to learn to distrust my own judgment, and that of everybody else. So I say that Fenianism may be a very enlightened, patriotic, and Christian association, with clearly-defined notions of what will benefit " ould Ireland ; " only, I'm unable to think it so. I'd rather think it a mental fever — an epidemic of the worst sort, the minds of those attacked taking the wildest flight away from all the sober paths that rational mortals love to follow. All the wild exhuberant factious fight-spirit raised to fever heat, arid concentrated on one grand onslaught on peace and order ; some undefined idea that down-trodden Ireland is to have her horn exalted by some not very well known means — tire, pillage., murder, shillelahs, processions, foreign help, and pieces of the True Cross ; a feeling that Brother Jonathan will act accoucheur at the birth of the great Irish- what ? Republic, I suppose ; and that a restoration of Irishman to their own land, as .of the Jews to Palestine, will yet take place, when Emralders will flock from all the holes and corners of the earth, to their " own native isle of the ocean," there to hold a perpetual jubilee — poteen, potatoes, and buttermilk. I have mixed much with Irishmen ; some of my staunchest friends are of that country. They are mostly impulsive, generous men— sure, when rightly known, to win your love. They may not have clear logical heads, but they have big kindly hearts ; and it is on these big warm hearts that scheming Irish Yankees work, and for the purpose of obtaining redress for the real or fancied wrongs of Ireland, raise money everywhere from their credulous countrymen, to be embezzled and squandered by themselves, f do detest begging-letter imposters, Head Centres, and all such cattle. Here, in the ends of the earth, where Irishmen monopolise more than their share of fat things, Fenianism would naturally be expected to make little headway. Oh, dear, no. My old friend, Paddy Doogan, could tell you differently. I knew Doogan long ago on Bendi^o. He is now settled in Ota 30, has a good farm, a good stock of cattle and horses, a fine family of children, and is, besides, as merry a fellow as ever tooted on a flute. Latterly he has become connected with the Fenian movement, and enjoys high rank among them in his own district. He, with some half dozen others, get maudlin once or twice a week over the sorrows of Ireland. Doogan is an honest trustworthy fellow. I could not fancy him doing a mean or a cruel action, and yet he has leagued himself with a band of assassins. He believes that Ireland is trodden upon, and that the Fenian Chiefs are disinterested patriots ; he contributes his money, and exercises all his influence to get others to contribute. Whether such a man's feelings could be so wrought upon that he would commit assassination I cannot pretend to say ; possibly he might, -'-c must necessarily believe that murder is a right way of redressing Ireland's wrongs. Ask him what these wrongs are, you corner him at once. He has no idea on the subject. The expulsion of tenants from their holdings he lays to the charge of the British Government, instead of to landlords, his own countrymen, who wish to get rid of indolent careless tenants. Ireland may have had many injuries to complain of, but these are in a great measure redressed. She is more kept down by the improvident character of her people than by misgovernment. It is hard for legislation to alter the character of he people— allow them all sorts of of liberties and license. If they prefer sitting in the sun looking at the potatoe-patch to any other employment, what is to be made of them ? The insane attachment they all have to the particular patch they have been reared on is one great cause of Irish troubles. No place else in the wide world can compare with. the "ould cabin"— human habitation, byre, and pigstye in one. The cesspool before the door, in which they gamboled in happy childhood, is hallowed by many remembrances. Woe to the man who presumes to sever them from these ; the bullet and knife await him. Little as they think it, the person who thrusts them out on the " could world," forcing them into action, is their .true friend. Parliamentary tinkering cannot improve the Irish character — emigration does. Mixed among men of all nations, they prove themselves possessed of energy, intelligence, perseverance, and ingenuity, second to none. If the money raised for the Fenian cause had been used in chartering ships, and pouring the Irish wholesale into America and the British colonies, it would have been money well and charitably spent. Logical thinking is not an Irish characteristic ; an equable imagination and a kindly heart is. Fenianism is essentially Irish. It seems to be without a definite aim or mode of action, other than the old shillelah argument. Its propagators appeal not to the intellect, but to the passions. Its chiefs are evidently scoundrels and ruffians of the deepest dye : men who will not hesitate to perpetrate the most atrocious crimes, not because they wish to raise Ireland (as if any country could be raised by such means), but because they despise all laws human and Divine, and because the shield of a secret society is spread over them, to assist in baffling the pursuit of justice. And it is to snch a society we find so many men among us join themselves, contributing of their means to swindlers, who use Ireland only as "open Sesame" to the purses of their countrymen, and assisting in keeping up a. system of coldblooded assassination, disgraceful to civilisation and to Christianity. The late attempted assassination of Prince Alfred will surely ruin the Fenian cause in the Australian colonies. Irishmen, generally speaking, are impulsive, and apt to be led by feeling ; but their feelings are true and manly. Excuse my warmth. Ido detest swindlers and sneaks of all sorts ; and am grieved more than I can express to see so many estimable men among us connected with such a Bociaty.