When the heroes of that rising of 1848--of whom John Mitchell
is the sample best known in America--were tracked in their plans and
devices, it appeared what their proposed methods of warfare were. Some
of these, detailed in Repeal newspapers, and copied into American
journals, were proposed to the patriotic women of Ireland, as their
peculiar means of serving their country; and three especially. Red-hot
iron hoops, my readers may remember, were to be cast down from
balconies, so as to pin the arms of English soldiers marching in the
street, and scorch their hearts. Vitriol was to be flung into their
eyes. Boiling oil was to be poured upon them from windows. This is
enough. Nobody believes that the thing would ever have been done; but
the lively and repeated discussion of it shows how the feelings of the
ignorant are perverted, and the passions of party-men are stimulated in
Ireland, when unscrupulous leaders arise, proposing irrational projects.
The consequences have been seen in Popish and Protestant fights in
Ulster, and in the midnight drill of Phoenix Clubs in Munster, and in
John Mitchell's passion for fat negroes in the Slave States of America.
In Ireland such notions are regarded now as a delirious dream, except
by a John Mitchell here and there. Smith O'Brien himself declares that
there is nothing to be done while the people of Ireland are satisfied
with the government they live under; and that, if it were otherwise,
nothing can be done for a people which either elects jobbers to
Parliament, or suspects every man of being a traitor who proceeds, when
there, to do the business of his function. I suspected that Patrick
would find out some of these things for himself in London; and I left
him to make his own discoveries, when I had pointed out one or two paths
of inquiry.

The process was a more rapid one than I had anticipated. He reported his
first letter to the "Nation" with great satisfaction. He had begun his
work in London. He went to the House of Commons, and came away sorely
perplexed. After having heard and written so much of the wrongs of
Ireland under the domination of the English Parliament, he found that
Ireland actually and practically formed a part of that Parliament,--the
legislature being, not English, but Imperial. He must have known this
before; but he had never felt it. He now saw that Ireland was as well
represented as England or Scotland; that political offices were held in
fair proportion by