ublic, and took another of the cheering of the
crowd--though this was very insignificant and in no way represented any
considerable body of citizens, any of the better class having
disappeared, leaving the streets to idlers and women and children or
else stray sightseers.

This was certainly a thing that struck me, and I realized at once that
the movement was at that time a dismal failure as far as the vast
majority of Nationalist Ireland was concerned. There was practically no
response whatever from the people: it seemed the very antithesis of the
emancipation of a race as we see it, say, in the capture of the Bastille
in the French Revolution. They looked on partly with amazement, partly
with curiosity--waiting for something dramatic to happen.

The point struck me with particular pathos--there they were posing as
the saviours of their country, and yet there they were already doomed
before they had even struck a single blow--and doomed by the verdict of
their own countrymen.

As I was making the remark to one of the men in the hotel, a boy with a
handful of sheets issued from the Post Office--they were the
proclamation of the new Republic of Ireland.

Instead of eagerly scanning the sheets and picking out the watchwords of
the new liberty, or glowing with enthusiastic admiration at the phrases
or sentiments, most of the crowd "bought a couple as a souvenir"--some
with the cute business instinct "that they'd be worth a fiver each some
day, when the beggars were hanged."

I give another pathetic story told to me, though I cannot vouch for it.
It was that young Plunkett was deputed to go to the base of Nelson's
Pillar and there read out the new charter of liberty to the emancipated
citizens.

He read it with deep emotion to a pack of squabbling women and
children--and he had hardly half finished the document when suddenly
there was a crash, followed by the sound of breaking glass.

At once the crowd turned round and looked in the direction whence it
proceeded, and one old woman, half sodden with drink, exclaimed with
delight, "Hooroosh!--they're raiding Noblet's toffee-shop." Whereupon
the newly emancipated slaves of a foreign tyranny rushed to partake in
the orgy of sweetmeats which came tumbling out into the street.

It was to me the saddest picture of the whole revolution, and even if
not true, was certainly typical of much of the pathos which crowned this
mixture of humour and tragedy.

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