The Lodge and Lord Dudley

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 16, 22 April 1909, Page 609

The Lodge and Lord Dudley

Irishmen have, as a rule, a saving sense of conscious humor. Those of them who have not seem to gravitate to the Society of the Saffron Sash. And they take " themselves terribly seriously — with that unconscious and unintended humor which is one- of the 'most piquant sauces of life. The brethren's latest exploit ' across the water ' was so altogether delightful that even the phlegmatic cableman asked a wider public to share his merry chuckle — for the which, much thanks. Here is his message from Melbourne in our daily papers of last Thursday (April 15) : ' Speaking at the dinner of the "Grand Council of the Orange Institution, tKe chairman took the Governor-* General to task for attending the St. Patrick's Day celebration. He said that Lord Dudley, as the representative of the King, had no right to be present, and he hoped v that he would beware of the siren tongue, which had too ready access to the Vice-royal ear.' Dickens has told in happy phrase how Bumble's feelings were shocked when

Oliver Twist declared that he was not in the least afraid of him. We can only imagine what must have been the feelings of the Grand Council when the* Governor-General 4 hit back ' and gave them (metaphorically) a particularly black eye. The Council had allowed its imagination to* run amok, and this is the substance of what it got for its pains, as told "by the cable-man in out daily papers of Friday of last week: 'A strong official denial is giyen to the statement, that at the St. Patrick's Day celebration at Melbourne the. Earl of Dudley used the words "I beg of you for my sake to give three cheers for the King.*' Such a form of invitation to any subject of the King, it is declared, would be as improper as it would be unnecessary.' . , y

Those hugely, but unconsciously, humorous brethren of the Saffron Sash feel that they have a mission to . reorganise Things in General, from a mayor and a High Church to a State Governor, from a Governor to a Governor-General, from a Governor-General to the King and Queen — and from these to the Almighty. jn 1868-9 their watchw.ord in Ireland was the warning emitted by the Rev. 'Flaming' Flanagan at Newbliss, Monaghan (as reported in the Northern Whig of March 21, 1868) : ' We'll kick the Queen's crown into the Boyne.' In the end of last January the chief standard-bearer "of the New "South Wales brethren said, at a reception in his honor (we quote from the Melbourne Advocate of February 6) : 'I am loyal to King Edward. There was a time when I hesitated for a little,, to sing "God Save the King," when I found him attending Requiem Masses and that like. I hesitated, but I can sing " God Save the King," as this King is a Protestant. I am going to tell you this, that should King Edward turn Papist, I for one would become a traitor. — (Applause-)_ There are thousands of others who would become traitors, because their King would have broken his vow, broken the Constitution of the Realm, and no longer have the right to be King. He sits on the throne while he is a Protestant.' King Edward had better begin to ter-r-r-emble 1