ow the gangway opposite to their constituents."(165) They
remembered all the talk about Mr. Parnell and his followers being a mere
handful of men and not a political party at all, and the rest of it. They
had now a revelation what a fool's paradise it had been.

As a supreme electoral demonstration, the Irish elections of 1885 have
never been surpassed in any country. They showed that neither remedial
measures nor repressive measures had made even the fleeting shadow of an
impression on the tenacious sentiment of Ireland, or on the powerful
organisation that embodied and directed it. The Land Act had made no
impression. The two Coercion Acts had made none. The imperial parliament
had done its best for five years. Some of the ablest of its ministers had
set zealous and intrepid hands to the task, and this was the end. Whether
you counted seats or counted votes, the result could not be twisted into
anything but what it was--the vehement protest of one of the three kingdoms
against the whole system of its government, and a strenuous demand for its
reconstruction on new foundations.

Endeavours were made to discredit so startling and unwelcome a result. It
was called "the carefully prepared verdict of a shamefully packed jury."
Much was made of the number of voters who declared themselves illiterate,
said to be compelled so to do in order that the priest or other
intimidatory person might see that they voted right. As a matter of fact
the percentage of illiterate voters answered closely to the percentage of
males over twenty-one in the census returns, who could neither read nor
write. Only two petitions followed the general election, one at Belfast
against a nationalist, and the other at Derry against a tory, and in
neither of the two was undue influence or intimidation alleged. The routed
candidates in Ireland, like the same unlucky species elsewhere, raised the
usual chorus of dolorous explanation. The register, they cried, was in a
shameful condition; the polling stations were too few or too remote; the
loyalists were afraid, and the poll did not represent their real numbers;
people did not believe that the ballot was really secret; the percentage
of illiterates was monstrous; promises and pledges went for nothing. Such
are ever the too familiar voices of mortified electioneering.

(M97) There was also the best known of all the conclusive topics from tory
Ireland. It was all done, vowed the tories, by the bishops and cle